


Runaways

by AnonymousOtter



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Background Relationships, Blood and Violence, Crimson Flower Route, F/M, Forced Cohabitation, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentioned Edelgard von Hresvelg, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Spoilers for Crimson Flower & Verdant Wind, Survivor Guilt, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:21:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 88,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25770517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousOtter/pseuds/AnonymousOtter
Summary: Claude is not her enemy, but Byleth knows from experience that it doesn’t make him her ally either. The last time they saw each other, eight years ago, he was smiling at her and promising his help; that one day, he would repay his debt. That was after she had conquered his land, trampled his ambitions and slaughtered his friends.-Post-Crimson Flower route Claudeleth
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 214
Kudos: 163





	1. Bonded by Blood

**Author's Note:**

> I loved how cool Claude was in Crimson Flower, but thinking about the sort of existence he probably led after the war makes me sad. This fic expands on that and basically sums up part of the moral dilemma I felt while playing this route.
> 
> In other words: angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a long fic (going by what I'm used to do), I've been working on it since March. It should be 9-10 chapters long, but my plans aren't set in stone. I'm both very excited and intimidated to finally share it since I never wrote something this long.... I hope I'll manage to deliver!

Peace came at a price.

In the first years, they’d lick their wounds and put fresh flowers on the graves every Sunday. They’d sing songs about those who fell into battle and recite litanies for their poor, lost souls. They’d listen to the lament of the widows and to the cries of the orphans. And in the quiet of the night, they’d reach to each other when the nightmares were too much to bear alone. But there was a country to rebuild, they said, and slowly but surely, ivy grew between the tombstones, the churches became silent and the cries were replaced by laugher. They stayed home at night and no one ever knock again on their door to find comfort and solace.

Peace came at a price, and it was one they decided they had already paid. When they moved on as she stood still, they told her that it was no good to delve on the past. That they were not soldiers. That none of them were meant for war and grief. And she, who struggled with her freshly born emotions, could only nod and trust them. It was not that hard to convince herself that if they were happy, then, eventually, she could be as well. All she had to do was to keep her eyes wide open and learn from them, just as they used to learn from her.

There is nothing time cannot heal, and when she wakes up in the morning, it has now become easier somehow to focus on the task at hand rather than to think too much about the nightmares that sometimes still haunt her nights.

 _Focus on the things that you love and smile_ , she repeats in her head, day after day.

And so, she thinks about how she loves the summer in Enbarr; the last weeks nearing Horsebow Moon when a fresh breeze blows from the sea nearby and rustles the orange trees. She loves the laughs of the children running in the streets, the hubbub of the marketplace, the smell of the freshly cut flowers they sell there, the sound of water dripping from the fountains and the melodies coming out the open windows of the opera house. She loves how nice of a place Enbarr has become. She loves how after they got rid of the corruption and cleaned the city, the orphans bathing in the canals and the dealers selling death in dark alleys were replaced by smiling couples and friendly merchants.

She makes her way through the streets of the capital and yes, she loves it all. When people recognise her, a new light appears in their eyes as they wave at her. She smiles back at them, sometimes they even exchange polite words. _How are you doing? Are you taking a break from all the paperwork? How about the Emperor? How nice it is, to share a bond this strong._

She cannot remember who these people are for the most part. She helped so many of them in the past, after all. But in their eyes, she is their hero, someone they learnt to love, to respect and perhaps even to fear. For the newcomers who moved to the city long after the war ended, she is a nobody, no more than a shadow, one anonymous figure amongst the others. She prefers it that way, when they don’t know her as the Wings of the Hegemon, a somewhat ominous nickname for the silent woman who walked beside the Emperor as she conquered Fódlan.

She takes a turn when she reaches the colosseum. Blown by the wind, the double-headed eagles on the crimson flags planted at the top of the edifice seem to soar in the sky. Another turn, and she is in the main artery, facing the imperial palace. Its white walls are almost blinding under the sun.

She received a missive this morning; a letter from the Emperor herself. It is nothing new, nor unusual. For the last year or so, ever since she started to prepare for her retirement, the two women have had more time to see each other. What picked her interest this time is the hour elegantly laid on the paper: three in the afternoon. It’s too late for lunch and too early for tea. Maybe it would not mean much for some people, but they know each other well. More importantly, the Emperor knows that at this time, her dear friend is usually training. For her to summon her like that must only mean one thing: she has something important to tell her.

When she enters the palace at last, the gatekeeper immediately salutes her with a friendly tone, his voice reverberating on the high ceiling.

“Good afternoon! Nice weather today, isn’t it?”

Byleth smiles back at him.

“It’s a beautiful day.”

She walks in the palace as if she owned the place and maybe, in some way, she does. She spent many hours and days here, working hand in hand with Edelgard’s government to restore the country. The few people she encounters don’t question her; they just bow their head slightly as she passes them. The corridors are quiet on this fine afternoon, but then again, it’s been like that for many years now. When she reaches the door of the parlour, the clock on the wall tells her that she’s a bit too early. To distract herself as she waits, she looks at the paintings hung all around the small room.

She knows them by heart, now. All of them are portraits of Edelgard. If the art styles and painting techniques are different, they share a common trait: whether she’s shown trampling over a flag, her hand lying on a map or just posing in her regalia, Edelgard looks proud, stern, serious, menacing on the canvases. Only Bernadetta’s piece is different. It’s in the details, but under her touch, Edelgard’s eyes show both determination and compassion and the hint of a smile is painted on her face. Edelgard didn’t want to vex any of the artists who offered her these portraits to show their gratitude after her victory, so she chose to hang them all on the walls. But it doesn’t take much to figure out she put Bernadetta’s on the best spot, where no one could possibly miss it.

Edelgard always struggled with her image. She often muses how history would remember her. The question sounds innocent enough, but there is always an underlying sadness in her words. They call her the Flame Emperor, the Conqueror, the Crimson Flower, and it’s hard to say if those nicknames are meant to be flattering or not.

 _I don’t need them to understand me nor to love me_ , she often says, _I just want them to trust me_. But she knows well enough that both go hand in hand. When you start a war, it is hard to convince the people you’ve sent into hell it was all done with good intentions, that the price to pay will eventually be worth it. And it’s precisely because actions speak louder than words that all the former members of the Black Eagles gave their all to earn the people’s trust. As long as their stomachs are full and they have a strong roof above their head, they will be willing enough to forget about the scars of war.

The first two years after Rhea’s death were the most difficult. There was much to be done and sadly, the bloodshed was still far from over. They made the most out of their regrettable allies for as long as they could and the day they started baring their fangs at them, they purged them swiftly. This battle that is destined to never appear in history books remains as clear as ever in Byleth’s memory. After that, there were some uprisings in the former Kingdom that they could quench by sharing food supplies and getting rid of the most dangerous dissident nobles still alive. As much as Fhirdiad’s fire was a tragedy, even Edelgard had to admit that ultimately, it did a good job damaging the Church’s image. The former Alliance stayed calm for the most part, perhaps because the allegiance to their leader was never strong to begin with. Skirmishes on the border with Sreng, foreshadowing a much larger and bloodier conflict to come, were successfully taken care of. Things got better. Time passed and life went on.

Byleth is suddenly taken away from her thoughts when three o’clock ring and the door to Edelgard’s parlour opens with a creak.

“Good afternoon, Professor.”

She smiles at the mention of this old title. It’s been years since she last taught to anyone.

“Hi, Hubert,” she answers. “As punctual as ever, I see.”

He chuckles in response.

Over the years, Hubert has become an indispensable presence into her life. He is like a beacon of light; an immutable face in an era when everything changes. He is her friend, her _best_ friend even maybe, as comical as this statement would probably sound to anyone knowing them from a distance.

Their bond is one built on the most solid material there is: blood. The one they spilled together one night under a starless sky. Hubert is not the talkative type, not the sort of person she would ever confess her feelings to nor seek comfort in, so they never talked about that night ever again. But when their eyes meet, Byleth remembers the bloodlust and euphoria she felt then, and how they were mirrored into Hubert’s own eyes as they tore down their enemies and painted the black city red. Bonded by blood, through hell and beyond. Not just Hubert and her, no, she shares the same bond with Edelgard and with the mad dog whose name has not left her lips in years.

When she enters the parlour, Edelgard has her back turned to her. She is contemplating Enbarr from her open window. Her long hair is carefully styled in a thick braid, her hands crossed behind her back and her nails painted black.

She is pretty, Edelgard. _Pretty_ , it is what her father used to call her back when he would still brush her chestnut hair and carefully tie her ponytails with purple ribbons. Of all her siblings she always was his favourite, or so she liked to believe. But he stopped combing her hair after she came back to him pale and broken. She never saw adoration nor devotion into his eyes anymore; instead there was just a lingering sense of guilt and shame. No one ever called her _pretty_ again; she was _too proud_ or even _arrogant_ instead. She did not care. The fire burning inside her that birthed so many ill-natured nicknames was what drew Byleth to her. Edelgard’s flames awoke her, melting away the ice surrounding her heart. But the war is over and the scores are settled, and what need there is for fierce warriors in such an era? So Edelgard once again brushed her long hair and painted her nails. She stopped wearing gloves and showed her scars proudly instead. This time, not for ceremonial nor to look intimidating. For herself.

Tired of carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, tired of pretending she is unbreakable, she wants to move on, to say goodbye to the Flame Emperor, and hello again to the little girl she once was, the El with her mouth full of sweets who would giggle under the kisses of her father.

When she turns around to welcome Byleth, her smile is as bright as the sun.

“Good afternoon, Byleth, thank you for coming. I know you’re usually training at this time, I’m sorry if this bothers you.”

“Hi El. And no, it’s alright.”

Edelgard reaches closer with feather-light steps but she does not offer Byleth a sit, and neither does she take one herself. She straightens up and clears her throat.

“There is something I wanted to tell you.”

“I assumed as much.”

A bright smile appears on her face and her lavender eyes shine with emotion.

“We finally bought the cottage we visited together two moons ago. We intend to move there by Lone Moon.”

Byleth is relieved to hear that the news is actually good, and she lets out a happy sight. The cottage is a small house located a few hours away from Enbarr, in the middle of a forest. Edelgard wants a quiet place to rest.

“I’m glad. Are you planning for a party?”

“That, I am,” says Edelgard and she watches as Hubert carefully takes his place beside her on her right side. “I sure hope you will be there. And until then, you are relieved of your duties. Take some holiday.”

“Was I ever officially hired?” Byleth laughs.

“You know better than to underestimate me,” El answers with a smile. “I know how hard you’ve been working for the Empire since… forever. You deserve some rest. Plus, how do you think it would look if the Emperor took her leave before her own advisors?”

The three of them laugh, but Hubert puts a hand on Edelgard’s shoulder and when their gazes meet, the atmosphere suddenly becomes tense. She lets out a sight and comes closer to Byleth. Slowly, gently, she puts her hands on her friend’s shoulders.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.”

Their eyes meet. Byleth gulps.

“I saw my physician yesterday.”

“And the news is not good.”

She shakes her head. Her small hands curl up on Byleth’s shirt and she lowers her head to look at her feet. Byleth does not try to chase her gaze; she respects her too much for that.

“How much time?” Byleth simply whispers.

“Two years. Top.”

Hubert, who stayed behind, clears his throat.

“Which means five for you. We know how fierce you are, Your Highness.”

The two women let out a small, awkward laugh. Slowly, as to not startle her, Byleth puts a hand on Edelgard’s shoulder.

“Is this why you are taking your leave earlier than anticipated?”

Edelgard raises her head and she meets Byleth’s gaze, her eyes trembling. “Do you think I am making the right decision? Isn’t it too early still…?”

“El,” Byleth answers, “you could have retired years ago if you wanted to. The Empire will be fine. We will be fine.”

For a few seconds, Edelgard says nothing, she simply looks for something in Byleth’s eyes, the hint of a lie maybe, and when she finds her answer, she is visibly relieved. She lets go of Byleth and adjusts her dress.

“I’m happy to hear it. Anyway, I will be counting on you for our little party. Until then, I think you should travel for a while. You always said you wanted to discover the world, don’t you?”

Byleth hates that Edelgard is brushing the subject asides, but it is hard to blame her. Her illness is something they have all been aware of for a long time now. After the war, when things started to settle down, Byleth and Linhardt sent to Enbarr books from all over Fódlan, and they locked themselves into the great library for several weeks trying to find a cure, a hint, something that could help Edelgard and save her from her inevitable fate. But they never found anything, and Linhardt eventually left the country to live his own life of adventures with Caspar. When Byleth came back to the palace with the bad news, Edelgard seemed sad for only a second. “It just means I will have to work even harder,” she simply said. From then on, bringing up the subject would only make her mad.

Edelgard has been living with that knowledge for long. The day the Agarthans released her from her prison, they told her she probably would not live long enough to have children, let alone to see them grow old. Instead of lamenting her fate, she embraced it and much like with every other unfortunate event of her life, she turned her pain and sadness into her driving force to achieve the maximum in as little time as possible. And Byleth would say that yes, she succeeded. It has been almost twenty years since that fateful day when they locked her down the palace. Edelgard made sure every single day since then counted for something. When she first brought up the idea of retiring, two years ago, she almost seemed guilty. Everyone supported her, though, knowing well enough that she, more than any of them, deserved to rest as well.

And so, they finally take a sit around the small table the maids prepared for them, pour some tea and eat cake. They talk about the cottage, their elusive party, their retirement, the coronation of Edelgard’s successor… Everything but what Byleth wants to talk about. The idea hurts her more than she can admit but El, the fierce woman who stood against the whole world to fulfil her wishes, the one who slayed God, has given up. It is with a heavy heart that Byleth says goodbye, agreeing on taking a break.

Hubert stops her before she leaves.

“Professor,” he says, “will you have coffee with me next Monday?”

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

“Lady Edelgard might have given up, but I haven’t.”

Hubert pours her a coffee darker than a moonless night, his eyes dark with anguish.

“Me neither,” Byleth nods, “but I have to recognise that I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Hubert's chair rattles against the cold stone of the balcony as he takes a sit. Despite the clement weather, the wind is strong today and it’s getting colder by the minute. Byleth welcomes the warm beverage.

“I’m sorry I have to ask you again, but are you sure you explored every single possibility in Fódlan?” He is clearly nervous, a sight so rare it becomes unsettling.

“Yes,” she answers, “I even found Hanneman’s secret library with all sorts of creepy samples. But there was nothing conclusive.”

Hubert lets out a sight. Whenever it’s only the two of them, he always seems more human.

“I’m afraid I reached the same conclusion. What about _outside_ of Fódlan?”

“I’ve thought about it but… With the war, and then the reforms…”

“Trust me, Professor, if it had been just me, if she didn’t need me there, right beside her, I would have left long ago. There are answers out there. There has to be. If not, then it means we killed our last chance to save her when we burnt Shambhala to the ground. And I could not live with that knowledge.”

“I feel the same way. But where do we even begin?”

“You know how I am. I’ve been thinking about it for years now, gathered clues. It is not a task I could just entrust to anyone. If the people… If our _neighbours_ were to learn that the Emperor is dying, it would be a disaster for Fódlan. But… I know I can rely on you.”

Byleth takes another sip of the bitter, hot coffee and calmly puts down her cup.

“Hubert, are you asking me to check on your discoveries…?”

He slams his hands on the table, perhaps too forcibly, and the porcelain rattles a little.

“I beg you. Please.” He bows down, as if that is necessary.

“Hubert, please. I know you love her, and you know I love her as well. If you truly, sincerely think I can make more of a difference out there than by staying by her side, then I will do it. There is no need to beg.”

Hubert sights with visible relief.

“Thank you, Byleth.”

They stay together for a while after that. It seems that Hubert has been planning that journey for a long time. How typical of him. Whether it was to convince her or because he already knew she would agree, he brought maps and books to their little coffee party. He has some pointers of where to go first, some names, mostly rumours or legends he heard who knows where. He even traced a potential route. Byleth is reminded once again that she is happy to be on his side. Hubert’s mind in a terrible thing.

“Our best bet, I think, is in Morfis and Dagda.” He points with insistence at the crosses he drew on the map. “Almyra even, maybe.”

Byleth grimaces at the mention of the name.

The last time she had to take her sword was two years ago, when the Almyran army attacked Fódlan’s Locket out of nowhere. Far from the usual skirmish, this was the strongest, most organized strike against Fódlan ever known to history. Whomever was responsible of Almyra saw that the situation had finally settled down in Fódlan and took their chance, thinking that perhaps peace would have weakened the Empire’s abilities. And they were not entirely wrong.

Almyra is like a thorn in Edelgard’s side. She always wanted harmony and comprehension with the country. They shared a common dislike for the Goddess, and what do they say about the enemy of your enemy? But Almyra is a powerful, uncontrollable force. They could swallow them should they want to, and taming that beast seemed like the only way to achieve a durable peace. By sparing Claude von Riegan at Derdriu, Edelgard had sincerely hoped the situation would play in her favour. Back then, the young duke had implied he had connections within Almyra; that they were better off with him alive than dead.

And so, when the Almyran flags appeared under the hard sun of the Locket and when by every passing hour it became clear that the Almyrans were not there to have a simple, friendly chat, they hoped that something, someone, would intervene and spare them the bloodshed. Alas, the golden miracle never showed himself. Worse, it was hard to brush off the idea that maybe that invasion was some sort of scheme of his. The strategy, the dirty tricks they used, seemed to make it clear enough.

It is only at the cost of many lives that the Empire and Almyra finally agreed to an armistice, if anything to prevent annihilating each other. After that battle, Byleth tried to question the Almyran soldiers about Claude but no one seemed to know who he was. It was easy to just assume that they lied on his orders, that back then, he had played them like a fiddle to save his life. The truth did not matter anymore, the only reality was that he was not there when they relied on him, if only just a little.

This battle was the bloodiest Byleth had ever known. She witnessed many of her friends die during that week, people whom she thought would never have to fight ever again. Soldiers, elderly, civilians. Children.

Those who only know her from a distance, who remember her as the cold-hearted mercenary she once was, the Ashen Demon, cannot suspect the sadness crushing her. But she has a beating heart now, she is free from the grip Sothis’ existence once hold on her feelings, and if it means she can laugh, smile and live wholly like a normal human being, this transformation also came at a price she couldn’t have considered and with a terrible realisation. She cannot forgive Almyra. She cannot forgive Claude.

“I hope I won’t have to go to Almyra,” she says. “We are supposed to be at peace, but I wouldn’t give much of my life should I put a foot there considering my… reputation.”

“I agree.” Hubert nods. “Let’s keep Almyra for last.”

When they finally part, he gives her an awkward hug.

“Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.” He then looks for something into his cape and takes out a dagger. The sheath is neatly decorated and at first glance, it looks like an ornamental weapon.

“Please, take this with you. You can see it as a keepsake. Or a lucky charm. Only ever use it with the intent to kill.”

 _He’s always so dramatic_ , Byleth thinks to herself, but maybe it’s appropriate considering the circumstances. She opens the sheath and gives a quick look at the jet-black blade hidden within.

“Lady Edelgard must never know what you are doing out there, she would not allow it. But I will not press you more than I should. If you cannot make it back on time for our little party, I will find an alibi for you. Be sure to write. Always one letter for Lady Edelgard, and one for me. I will not be able to contact you, so please be as precise as possible.”

Byleth nods, puts the dagger inside her coat and gathers the many maps and books into her arms.

“Watch over El and the Empire while I’m away,” she says as she leaves.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Byleth does not know any more if she truly thought at some point that she could find her answers in six months, but if she did, she realises now she clearly was delusional. It took her two just to reach Morfis. The quickest way was to go through Almyra, but she preferred to take a boat instead from Hrym’s territory. Ever since then, she has made little progress.

At first, she was optimistic. It was the first time since her mercenary days she was travelling by herself and regardless of the importance of her mission, the feeling immediately put her in high spirits. She took five days to prepare for her journey. She bought maps, a new pair of boots, binoculars, a rudimentary dictionary, and a compass. She managed to cram as much equipment as possible in a backpack, including Hubert’s “lucky charm”, which upon further examination really didn’t look sharp enough to be of any use. She arranged her long, blue hair in a braid she tied with her favourite black ribbon, secured her father’s dagger against her waist as she always did, and entrusted her cat to Bernadetta. Without much more ceremony than that, she took her leave.

The first thing she notices upon reaching Morfis is how diverse the place is. The streets are filled with people from all over the world. Capital of magic and cradle of an ancient, prosper civilisation, Morfis attracts all sorts of adventurers and scholars eager to learn about magic. She hears about languages, names, cities, countries, she never suspected existed. Fódlan’s goddess, Sothis, has no influence in this land and neither have Crests. She wanders in the city, loses herself in its narrow streets. The place is ancient; even older than Enbarr probably. There are several schools of magic but also libraries and marketplaces where you can find all sorts of items, trade all sorts of knowledge. Every time something picks Byleth’s interest, she writes it down in her journal and in the letters she sends to the capital. At first, during the first weeks, she truly has hope.

But Hubert’s “leads”, one after the other, prove to be dead ends. What he heard was either some sort of exaggeration, or the people involved were dead for decades. She cannot blame him, Fódlan was isolated from the rest of the world for centuries, millennia, and even if the borders are more open now, information remain hard to get by.

She meets many people. Old fortune tellers, drunkards, merchants, thieves, even. Outside of Fódlan, very little people know what Crests are. She spends hours trying to explain herself and more often than not, it is obvious that people just don’t want to talk to her and feign ignorance. And that is when she manages to be understood in the first place. The language barrier is proving more difficult than she ever imagined and Byleth finds no one to blame but Rhea, who made sure no one in Fódlan would ever bother seeing past the borders of their own territories.

Because communication with Fódlan is so hard, Byleth has no news from Edelgard. As the six-month deadline grows closer, she cannot stop thinking about what sort of justification Hubert will have to find for her. At night, the same nightmare comes to visit her again, and again: Edelgard, in her little house, sick and dying in a beautiful bed with white sheets, surrounded by everyone but her.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

“You meet the librarian.”

It’s the middle of the day and Byleth, maybe, admittedly, had too many drinks. It is a side effect of her renewed humanity she never would have imagined. It is not as bad as it was with her father, but she sure has a sweet spot for the beverage. And so, as bad as it is, the old woman grabs her attention. She cannot remember exactly how she ended up meeting her—surely she got recommended by the guy selling perfumes near the temple, whom himself got recommended by the strange scholar next door who stays in her inn, whom she heard of from the owner of the place… It doesn’t matter. She heard the woman knew things, and that her tongue had the tendency to loosen with alcohol and so she opted for that strategy.

“The librarian?” she repeats.

“Name Orion,” the old woman says, emptying her drink in one swift motion. “Not in Morfis, no. In old city further east named Senerio. Few hours flying.”

“I never heard of it.”

“It’s just weirdos there.” She shrugs.

“So this Orion guy is a weirdo as well? And he can help me?”

“Can say so. Never met him myself, but old and mysterious. Very knowledgeable, has books from everywhere. Might help you, yes.”

It is not the first time Byleth hears that sort of information and the truth is, most of those led to absolutely nowhere. Once, it was even a plain trick to try and rob her. But Morfis has been such a dead end thus far, she figures out she doesn’t have much to lose if she tries to meet that Orion guy. And after that… After that maybe it will be time to leave for real and look for intel somewhere else. She has been staying in Morfis for too long. The city is captivating and so old, for the longest time she thought her answers would be there. At this point, she has to admit she was wrong, so she packs her belongings on a wyvern she bought a few days prior and moves out.

Senerio is a maze of little streets, crooked and dirty. When she will describe it in her letters later, she will name it “the poor man Morfis”. She rents a room in the first inn she can find and quickly goes looking for the library before the sun sets.

It is right here, exactly where the old woman told her it would be. It’s also, as she said, very weird. It’s not really a library, it’s actually a sort of drug store, a small boutique which at the moment also has no owner on sight. Byleth enters and finds a paper on the counter. Her knowledge of Morfis’ language is basic enough she can read a little, but the scripture is so bad she still struggles to decipher the words written there.

I am in the library backdoor. Go look for me if you need something. 

—Orion

There is indeed an open door at the back of the room, and so she goes through there. It leads to a small courtyard, baked under the sun. The place is beautiful and tidy, the exact opposite of the streets of Senerio. A small table is arranged between the orange trees, and at the opposite side of the patio, under an alcove, there’s the entry to another building. The windows, she can see from there, are obstructed with curtains. Painted on the frontage with the same ugly font, she can read the word “Library”. Without bothering knocking first, she makes her way through the open door.

The room is bigger than she suspected from the outside. It is poorly lit and like nothing she has seen before. She isn’t even sure the term “library” really applies anymore. Books are everywhere, piled up, dusty and cranked, but probably organized in a way the owner of the place would be able to understand. In the centre of the room, there’s a small table, a few centimetres tall, strangely clean and tidy compared to the chaos surrounding it.

The librarian is sitting there on a cushion directly on the floor, a pair of coke-bottled glasses hanging low on his nose. Cup of tea in one hand, quill in the other, his eyes are glued to the book in front of him and it looks like he hasn’t noticed her yet. He is a man of an indeterminable age, but definitely not as old as the woman in Morfis seemed to imply. He has dark, curly hair and a messy beard. His face is pale and his expression tired in the flickering light.

It doesn’t click right away. Before her brain processes it, Byleth’s nose is drawn to the smell floating in the air. A strong, spicy flavour that tastes of grass and summer sun. Pine. It’s only then that she understands, and she wants to turn back and leave before the man can notice her, but it’s already too late. As if he finally acknowledged her existence, the librarian puts down his cup, gets rid of his glasses and slowly massages his temples. At last, he turns to face her. His expression betrays nothing as he checks out her figure, her face, her hair, eventually. For a split second, a glimmer seems to appear into his eyes and fades away.

In a way that would have no doubt been more dramatic years and years ago, he drags himself away from the table and stands up. When he speaks, it is with a strong Almyran accent new to Byleth’s ears.

“I guess I should have run even further away.”

Claude doesn’t even grant her the hint of a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is obviously meant to be more of an introduction chapter... I hope you don't feel too baited, I promise from now on, it will be a Claude fest. I felt like it was important to set the action properly. See you next time if you enjoyed so far, and thanks for reading :)


	2. Hard Feelings

Byleth was never good at trusting her feelings.

People would praise her ability to please those around her so easily, how she would manage to make her way into their hearts with what looked like little effort, and they mistook it for more than it really was.

Her secret lied in a simple formula: a great sense of observation and a good memory. From a young age, she had learnt how to observe people, understood how to please them and give them what they wanted—or not.

Like most things in life, she learnt that trick from her father.

“Most people follow their hearts because it gives them instant gratification,” he told her once, “but you cannot trust your feelings when it’s a matter of life and death.

“Instead you have to observe.

“Analyse.

“And act.”

Truth to be told, it was already like a second nature for Byleth who would have never considered any other alternative anyway.

She had emotions, yes, but they were of the simpler kind. Anger, happiness, sadness… None of those ever played a part when it came to handling people. She would observe them and determine if they were a threat. Then, they would either live, or die. It was simple enough and for years, this pragmatism guided her every move on the road. She earned an infamous reputation, that of an implacable warrior, a cold-eyed blade. The Ashen Demon.

When she grew older and found her father’s diary right where he had left it for her to read, she realised that Jeralt was not one to practise what he preached.

On that day, Byleth finally understood why she had thrown herself between Edelgard and the axe threatening her life on the fateful night of their encounter: Edelgard was her exception.

When she is in danger, Byleth’s body moves on its own accord, defying logic and self-preservation. Her brain shuts down and her instincts take the lead. Byleth could never explain why exactly things were the way they were, so for lack of explanation, she decided to accept it, embrace it. She called it “fate”, thought that maybe it was love, one akin to the feelings that pushed her father to run away from Garreg Mach a long time ago. Maybe things were not black and white, after all.

In the Holy Tomb, Byleth stands up for Edelgard. Her blood pulses through her veins, carried by an un-beating heart, and she bares her fangs at Rhea, the woman who offered her a place to call home. She fears for her life, for that of her students, for Edelgard’s. She is afraid of doing the irreversible, but she still points her blade at the Archbishop.

Inescapable, inevitable, inexorable… Like a cog caught up in a complex machinery, from this day onwards, she’s always been standing right where her heart led her to be on that day.

And now, it is again because of Edelgard that Byleth is confronted to the familiar yet alien face of an old acquaintance. A friend (maybe) who turned into her enemy (for sure) and then into something else—but what, exactly? Her guts feeling is telling her to go away, to leave this place and never come back, and a silent fight begins between her heart and her head. She weighs up the pros and cons, tries to calm the storm in her heart and to forget the taste of bile in her mouth to evaluate the threat as objectively as possible.

Claude is not her enemy, but Byleth knows from experience that it doesn’t make him her ally either. The last time they saw each other, eight years ago, he was smiling at her and promising his help; that one day, he would repay his debt. That was after she had conquered his land, trampled his ambitions and slaughtered his friends.

He disappeared after that battle, never to be seen again. Is he the type to hold a grudge, she wonders?

“Are you going to say something?”

Claude’s voice is deep, devoid of any emotion. His words are coloured with a familiar accent: Almyran, no doubt about it. And while it confirms part of her suspicions, it raises even more questions. He seems composed, but Byleth quickly notices that he looks in her direction without meeting her gaze. It’s as if he were fixating a point, just behind her head.

She breathes slowly, and she observes. His posture is tense, his legs slightly bent. From time to time, his eyes wander to a bookshelf somewhere on her left side. He’s looking for something, she figures. A way out, maybe. Or a weapon.

“If you came all the way down there to kill me, please at least spare me the suspense.”

The inflection in his voice tells her he’s trying to sound cocky, but now that she has noticed his body language, Byleth can sense the discomfort behind the bravado. He is cornered.

 _Not a threat._ _For now_.

“Sorry,” she finally says. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was looking for the librarian, Orion.”

“For me, then,” he cautiously says.

“It seems like it.” _If that’s your name, now_ , she adds to herself.

Claude looks at her, trying to read her expression despite the darkness of the room. When Byleth realises her right hand moved on its accord to rest on her dagger, she understands why he perceived her as a threat. She immediately moves her hand away from the weapon. Judging by his reaction, it seems to appease him.

“So, you want me to believe this is all just a coincidence?” he asks.

It really is; it frightens her. An unexpected encounter, against all odds.

“Listen,” Claude continues, and his posture is more and more lax as he looks at her expression of disbelief, “you cannot really blame me for being a bit wary.” He scratches the back of his head lazily in a familiar motion.

“How about we have some tea and we go from there?” he says. “No doubt we have much to talk about. And I guess there is something you want from me.”

Byleth considers the situation. For now, she has decided to follow her head. She wants answers, so she simply nods as Claude reaches for the kettle on his table. He grabs his teacup and another one that upon quick inspection looks clean enough, and he shows her the way out with a movement of the hand.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The sun is already going down when they sit around the table in the courtyard. The days are short in Morfis.

Byleth adjusts her posture and puts on her best neutral face, but the dread in her stomach won’t leave her.

 _Stop it,_ she orders her body. _You have no reason to panic_ , _just stay vigilant_.

She takes a deep breath she hopes isn’t too noticeable and she focuses. She doesn’t let her eyes wander off his hands when he pours tea into her cup; his love for poisons is notorious, after all.

 _We have much to talk about_ , he said. Byleth clearly remembers cutting him down in Derdriu; and if the blow ended up not lethal, she knows it wasn’t exactly by design. And what about him? What about his dissimulated threats back then, his promises that in the end were empty enough they couldn’t prevent the Almyran raid years later? Had he any saying in that attack?

And so, they sit in an awkward silence for long minutes. Claude acts innocent enough, but Byleth knows he’s gauging her, his eyes wandering over her body, reading into her reactions—or lack of thereof. And she does the same.

Now that she can see him clearly in broad daylight, Byleth can assert that years have not been kind to Claude. It’s not that he turned ugly—there’s no way someone with his facial features would ever be, but compared to the man she remembers, he looks uncharacteristically unkept. His hair, that must be shoulder-length, is fastened in a messy bun. Black curls waver before his face. What she took for a beard in the dark is really no much more than a stubble, most likely born out of laziness rather than intentional. There are dark circles under his eyes and his completion is pale, almost sick. The slight limp he tried to dissimulate as they walked in the patio didn’t escape her attention, and neither does the way his skinny body floats in his large clothes. But his gaze is perhaps what strikes her the most. It used to be sharp, calculating, menacing, even. Now, it is just dull.

Yet Claude meticulously stares back at her with these dead eyes of his, drinking his tea at an agonisingly slow pace. His face betrays nothing, but Byleth wonders what sort of thoughts is crossing his mind.

She has changed as well, hasn’t she? Of course, she grew older, which all things considered should be an anomaly when it comes to her. Compared to the last time they met, her hair and eyes do not bear the Goddess’ blessing anymore. She wonders how much he can possibly know about what happened to Fódlan after he left. What happened to _her_. Anyone who knew her from back then would be able to tell that something more than time had an influence on her. Something supernatural.

She didn’t touch her tea, but at last, Claude puts his own cup down. He starts speaking.

“So, how are things going in Fódlan?”

Platitudes.

She knows Claude’s silver tongue for what it is, though. A game of words is a dangerous one to play when he is the opponent, and she’s starting at a disadvantage. Byleth was never good at conversation. She always let Hubert, Ferdinand and Edelgard do the job most of the time for a good reason.

Their respective circumstances and tragic history aside, her mission in Morfis is a delicate matter. She knows she cannot outsmart the man they used to call the Master Tactician, but keeping her mouth shut? That should be easy enough.

And so, she answers. “Everything is just fine.”

“Well, I guess the news would have reached me if your precious little Empire had fallen to ashes.” He quickly sips his tea, maybe to silence the mockery in his voice.

Claude seems untroubled, careless as he continues to drink, serving himself another cup without bothering to suggest her a refill.

Suddenly, he moves a hand towards her and for a second, she feels herself reaching for her blade. But instead of doing something dangerous, he takes her cup and brings it to his lips. He brusquely puts it back on the table in front of her.

“It’s not poisoned, see,” he says, visibly annoyed.

For a second, Byleth feels slightly ashamed of her paranoia. Claude lets out a deep sigh.

“So tell me, Professor…” he says. Byleth ticks at the nickname and he crooks a brow.

“Oh, I guess you aren’t a professor anymore.

“You said you weren’t looking for me… But I did promise you something I never quite had the opportunity to deliver on. My help, that is. Is this why you are here? To collect your debt?”

The way he talks to her like he owes her money reminds her of that crude, loud guy, back at the Academy. Byleth wonders what became of him. Like most people, he probably either died during the unification war, or lived long enough to reintegrate society.

“I’m looking for information. The sort that you cannot find in Fódlan,” she says in the most composed and neutral voice she can find.

“And so, it led you here, in Morfis, land of magic and wonders,” he mocks. “Is the Adrestian Empire … no, sorry; the _Great_ _United Empire of Fódlan_ embracing again its prestigious legacy?”

While Claude’s face is still emotionless, it is hard to miss the disdain in his voice.

Byleth shakes her head, eyes fixated on her cup. She can see the mark of his lips imprinted on the porcelain where he drank before.

“Come on now,” Claude says with a hint of exasperation in the voice. “I cannot help you if you don’t talk to me. There was a reason someone recommended me—sorry _Orion_ , to you. You do realise people come to me for very specific reasons, right?”

There is something satisfying in seeing his composed façade breaking down a little. _So you can lose your cool_ , she thinks, but what she sees behind the mask is nothing she likes. Impulsive, and probably hard to predict. She can feel the tension slowly building up between them, in the way he crooks his brow ever so slightly and shakes a leg under the table.

The dread in her guts comes back. It is not worth it. Not worth putting herself, the Empire, Edelgard, at risk.

“You don’t trust me,” Claude blurts out. It’s not a question.

Byleth’s eyes meet his.

“Should I?”

He sighs once again.

“What did I ever do to deserve this? Wasn’t I a good friend? Did I ever try to stand in your way? Between your little princess and her throne?”

That, they will never know for sure. Edelgard deemed necessary to cut the snake’s tail before it even started to rattle. Time made it clear that maybe, it would have been better to get rid of the head instead, so it would not come back to bite them six long years later.

As much as they all tried to convince themselves otherwise, Claude’s signature was all over the attack on the Locket. The formations, the schemes, the poison… Byleth remembers the faces of her friends who died there, of the civilians convulsing in pain, foam and blood leaking from their mouths, their ears, their eyes. Their screams and their tears are still vivid in her memories. When she recalls those days, it is still indisputably Claude’s name that comes to mind.

She does not trust him; she never did. Not now, not then, not even back at Remire when they first met and she could already tell his cheerful behaviour was a masquerade. He always rubbed her in the wrong way. Edelgard was guarded, calculating. But Claude… Claude was fake. She remembers how he would give her sugary words while eyeing at the Sword of the Creator, how his jokes sometimes felt like dissimulated threats.

And yet, in front of her, Claude looks like nothing but the shadow of the man he once was. And he has the answers that she wants—no, the ones that she _needs_.

Observe.

_He looks weak._

Analyse.

_I am the one who came looking for him, not the other way around._

Act.

“I’m looking for information about Crests.”

The words leave her mouth before she can really hold them back, and part of her already regrets telling that much.

But she finally, finally gets a reaction out of him that isn’t a bored sigh or a dark gaze. His eyes suddenly lock with hers and his pupils widen ever so slightly. She piqued his interest.

“Crests, you say…?” He hums. “Don’t you have people well versed into that in Fódlan? Hanneman…?”

“He is dead.”

“Then that airhead… What was his name again?”

She shakes her head. “Linhardt left long ago.”

Claude adjusts his chair so he can be closer to her. His interest is now clearly palpable.

“I see. But I do wonder… Why go to Morfis of all places, then? You do know Fódlan’s so-called ‘Goddess’ never put a foot in there, right? There are no Crests here. So what sort of knowledge exactly are you expecting to find here that you would not encounter in Fódlan?”

“I’m afraid I cannot answer that question.”

“Then we are stuck, I guess.” He shrugs. “Sipping tea and talking about the good, old-time.”

Byleth’s heart is thundering inside her chest. The kind, compassionate and perhaps guilty part of her wants to believe him, to tell him everything so he can help her. But another, louder part, wants to reach for her dagger and have him confess that this treacherous attack was his, to make him pay.

Both solutions are dangerous, and so she stands up instead.

“I should go,” she says. “Thank you for the tea. Consider your debt paid. If that even really bothered you.”

It costs her a lot, but she bows her head and turns on her heel, ignoring the rage boiling inside her chest.

She’s almost out of the courtyard when she finally hears his voice.

“ _Thanks for the tea_? You didn’t even touch your cup!”

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

She doesn’t sleep well, that night. Her bed was hard, the sheets moist from the heat. She is used to it, but the thoughts ravaging her mind were something else entirely. The trip between the library and the inn is dizzy in her mind. She rushed through the streets, her eyes fixated on the ground and her thoughts clouded. When she was finally alone in her room, her brain had a hard time processing what happened.

Of all the possibilities she thought of before leaving for this journey, encountering Claude in Morfis was not one she had envisioned. What is he doing here, exactly? Wasn’t he supposed to be in Almyra…?

As she chased after sleep, his face kept appearing in her mind throughout the night, imprinted behind her eyelids. Then the faces of her dying friends.

When the first lights of dawn show up through her window, she gives up on sleep altogether and decides to explore Senerio a bit more before leaving for good.

She spends her day carefully avoiding the block where Claude’s shop and library—and she assumes his home—are located. Instead, she tries to focus on the other people who could help her.

The old woman who told her all about Senerio wasn’t lying. The people living there are weird, even by Morfis standards; even by her own standards. They are marginal, and she can read fear in their eyes when she tries to talk to them.

Were they shunned; she wonders? Was Claude shunned? No, it’s no good to think about him. But it proves harder than it should to just ignore what happened the day before: the few people who do answer her questions always redirect her to him.

They speak of him with both disdain and respect. To these people, he’s clearly a stranger. The most respect he gets is when they call him Orion or “the Librarian”. Most of the time, they have less amicable nicknames for him. The Almyran snake. The godless bastard. The coward. She wonders what he did to deserve this treatment and to be ostracised even among the marginal. But whatever the name they chose to address him with, they all agree that he’s the one person in Senerio who can help her in her quest.

 _It’s hopeless_ , she thinks as she sits down at the top of a terrace to watch the sun go down after a day spent running after information left and right in the dusty streets of the city. In the distance, the bells of an old temple resonate.

She keeps telling herself that everything is fine. Morfis, after all, was just one among Hubert’s many leads. She still has a chance to find something elsewhere. In Albinea, in Dagda, in places she never heard of before. But there is another truth to this matter, another constraint: she is working on a clock. And she already lost time. Too much time.

“What should I do, El?” she hears herself ask out loud. The only answer she gets in return is the oppressive silence of the city.

“What would _you_ do?” she murmurs.

She knows the answer to that one.

Byleth had no intention to meet with Claude again. She thought about it a lot, how she would have been able to share her secrets with “Orion” the old, knowledgeable librarian. But with Claude…? It will prove difficult. This is why she ran away, the day before. To avoid telling him too much, and to avoid killing him on the spot.

But Edelgard relies on her, and Edelgard wouldn’t give up, she wouldn’t lose her cool, wouldn’t let her emotions get the best of her. No, she would move heaven and earth to protect, to save, the one she loves. The old Edelgard would, anyway. She never gave up on Byleth, not even when everyone else thought her dead.

Byleth doesn’t truly believe that Claude holds the answers to Edelgard’s issues. She doesn’t believe he is truthful, nor her ally. But she knows he does have answers, answers to some questions that have been rambling inside her brain for two, long years. This is not just about Edelgard anymore, she realises. Part of her never stopped blaming Claude for what happened at the Locket. Would he be so cautious about her if he truly were innocent?

Yes, maybe that gut-wrenching feeling that won’t leave her ever since they met is simply grudge, and there is only one way to settle it. 

“Kill two birds with one stone…” she murmurs to herself.

Lost in her thoughts, she doesn't notice when the sun sets. The bells resonate once again in the silent city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm going to settle for "shorter" chapters for this one so I can release one every two weeks or so. Hopefully real-life work won't get in the way...
> 
> Thank you for reading and for your kind comments last time :)


	3. Hidden Motives

When he was around, his voice and his laugh echoed off the old stones of the monastery.

If you left your bedroom late at night, chances were you would run into him looking for some secret passageway near the training grounds or the cathedral. In the afternoons, he liked to catch up on his lost sleep under the great trees below the ramparts of the town. He cracked jokes during the Church meetings and fed straight cats with food stolen in the refectory. That’s how he forged himself a curious reputation; that of an eccentric.

Then there were the rumours started by his detractors—and he had many, the most vocal one sleeping in the room right next to his. They used to bother him at first, these rumours, but as with most nuisances in his life, he chose to ignore them and turned them into something he could take advantage of. It was clear as day that whether they mistook him for a fool or for a liar, they all sorely underestimated him.

Coming from the Prince of Faerghus, it was not surprising. From the very first day they were presented to each other, it was obvious Dimitri always wanted to see the good side of people. He wouldn’t have called him a friend—as far as he could remember no one really ever had that privilege—but they shared a meal more often than not, and sometimes they even trained together. Then, the Prince’s façade broke down and he was never quite the same again. They saw each other one last time, on the day the Prince became a King. There was no warmth left between them.

When it came to the Imperial Princess on the other hand, it seemed like animosity was all there ever was. She was his perfect opposite: if he dissimulated his motives under a smile, her polished, strict mask hid a softer core. He could tell that she thought highly of herself and probably little of him. But she was so easy to crack, though, he could barely contain himself: a simple joke or an innuendo and her face would inevitably turn bright red. They never got along and if you asked her why, she’d probably say it was because of this childish demeanour. He often wondered if she ever realised that they were both after the same thing, or if she underestimated him too much for that.

And so, for most people in Garreg Mach, he was mostly insignificant; and it was convenient, for there is no safer place in the world than that of a man everyone mistakes for a fool.

Yet, it didn’t take long for the new professor to understand that none of the words coming out of his mouth were really all that vain. She was never hostile towards him, not directly in the way the Archbishop’s assistant would be sometimes, and she seemed too kind to truly despise anyone. But she lacked the candidness of the young Prince and the impulsivity of the Imperial Princess. She was cold, emotionless, mysterious. He hated it as much as he loved it.

She gifted him a pair of black riding boots on his birthday, and he offered her his first dance for the Festival. He had many questions for her, about her lack of expressions, her troubled past, her unusual Crest, her sword and her relation to the Goddess. But one day she disappeared and with her, all the answers he was looking for.

For five whole years, he thought her dead; until she was not. He heard about the fall of the Great Bridge of Myrddin and in what felt like the blink of an eye, she was staying in front of him, the blade in her hands still red from the blood of his friends.

He stretches up like a cat and lets out a yawn. It’s late in the night—or early in the morning, it’s hard to tell—and his eyes are starting to hurt a little. It has always been like that: when he focuses on something, he forgets about everything else. And focused, he is. It’s been a while since he last felt so excited. He spent the day shuffling things around and dusting old books, a thousand ideas and plans pilling up in his head, set in motion by the unexpected encounter from the day before.

Byleth, in the middle of his library. It’s not so much that the sight surprised him; somehow, deep inside him, he always knew they’d meet again. Not because he believes in fate or chance, but because one way or another, he would have made sure of it. No, the real surprise was that _she_ was the one who came to him.

He stands up and carefully avoids walking on the many books splattered across the floor of the small room. His steps are unusually light, his head a bit dizzy. He whistles an old Almyran song as he reaches for his kettle and turns on the stove.

That’s when he hears a low bump outside. He smiles a little, just for himself.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

When Byleth lands her wyvern in the courtyard, she’s not surprised to see the light is still on in the library. By the look on his face when he comes outside alerted by the noise, Claude isn’t surprised either to see her awoken in the middle of the night, nor to find her on his doorstep.

She dismounts without ceremony and swallows her pride as she starts talking.

“I need your help,” she says.

Considering her dramatic exit the day before, she fully expected him to mock her. Instead, he says nothing. His eyes silently urge her to continue.

“I want to know I’ve done everything I could have done.” She feels a lump in her throat as the words escape her mouth.

Claude sighs and scratches the back of his head.

“I already told you… I cannot help you if you don’t tell me more than that.”

Her heart thunders inside her chest. It’s dangerous to share this secret with him, but it’s a risk she already decided is worth taking. “I’m looking for a way to suppress a Crest.”

Claude is visibly surprised for a split second, but the initial shock makes way for a more distant expression.

“Well… I can see how you couldn’t find what you are looking for,” he says.

He moves towards her and reaches for her wyvern. He gently scratches beneath its chin.

“The people of Morfis,” he says, “they don’t care about Crests. This is how I could end up as a so-called expert on the subject: there’s simply no competition.”

The wyvern tilts its head to meet his fingers and lets out a contented growl. “Whatever information I have about Crests in my library, I got from elsewhere. And nothing of that sort.”

“Elsewhere?” Byleth asks with a small voice.

“Follow me,” he simply says, inviting her inside.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The kettle is hissing; it has been for a while. Seated on her lap around the small table, Byleth considers the wood stove that isn’t really one: there’s no fire under the pot, but the water is still boiling. Morfis has all sorts of strange technology she cannot help but find fascinating.

Her eyes wander around the room. The place looks even more surreal in the dim light of this strange lamp Claude turned on earlier. Her gaze goes from the skulls sited on the desk to the objects of all shapes and forms hanging from the ceiling along with various exotic plants. At the opposite side of the table, Claude installed a mattress. She wonders if he sleeps here on a regular basis. Her eyes stop on him, perched on a ladder with precarious balance. He’s been looking for something for several minutes, shuffling his books and strange objects around and ignoring both her and the hissing kettle.

“Ah!”

He pulls an object from behind his books and swiftly jumps off the ladder. He puts a dusty book on the table, but before opening it, he turns around to finally take the kettle off the stove. He opens the lid and throws some herbs inside before serving two cups. He sits back to his place, right in front of Byleth.

“There’s this man who came here one day,” Claude begins. “He was from a city down south and he was making his way to Morfis to sell antiques. Of course, he piqued my interest…”

He starts drinking his steaming-hot beverage. “He had books of the sort I had never seen here, nor in Fódlan. Books like this one.”

He taps the hard cover of the old book and his fingers find their way to the edges. He opens it carefully and Byleth immediately looks inside. On the pages, she can see a language she doesn’t recognise and several drawings of the technical kind, with captions and scales. She doesn’t need to understand what's written, the images tell enough.

A creature. A dragon. The silhouette is terribly familiar. She lets out a gasp.

“That’s…!”

“Imagine my surprise,” Claude says, his eyes hyper-focused on her, “when he first showed me this and I realised that what I had heard about the fall of Fhirdiad held more truth to it than what I had assumed.

“Actually,” he continues, “a lot of things suddenly made sense.”

“How can such a book exist?” Byleth finally says. “And here, of all places...?”

“I cannot really decipher it, if I’m honest with you. Some other books he sold me were written in old Dagdan of Fodlanese, but this one in particular uses a language I don’t understand at all. And no one around here does, as far as I know.”

Claude pauses for a moment and looks at her disturbed face, waiting for her to add something. She doesn’t.

“So, aren’t you curious about how the antiquarian put his hands on it...?” he teases.

She gulps and her inquisitive eyes meet his. He looks very satisfied with her reaction.

“Turns out, this city he came from is near the sea, but also at the desert’s door. And a few years ago, after a tempest, the wind uncovered the entrance to a strange place buried into the sand.”

He carefully closes the book and puts it asides to unroll a scroll instead. Byleth takes it for another antique at first, but upon further inspection it doesn’t seem that old.

“It’s a map,” she states when she finally manages to understand the maze of blurry lines traced on the paper.

“Yes.” Claude nods. He takes a sip of his drink and Byleth wonders how he manages not to burn himself.

“See,” he continues, tracing a path on the map with a finger, “in this desert, lied a city. Or well, as you can see, maybe a more appropriate description would be ‘a forgotten, deadly maze’. It’s from an old civilisation…” He takes another sip, as if to maintain some suspense.

“Another civilisation…” Byleth muses.

“Some people decided to explore the place, of course. And there were many things lying there. Not gold nor treasures, mind you. Nothing that would be of any value for the common folks… But it’s definitely valuable for people like me.”

“People like you?”

He nods. “It’s knowledge. Lots and lots of it, from a distant time.

“And of course, there were books there,” Claude says when he sees the circumspect look on Byleth’s face. “A lot of old publications. Older than you and me, older than the Empire, even. Stuff that the Church of Seiros wouldn’t condone, much like what I just showed you. Information you wouldn’t find in Fódlan. About Relics…” He pauses. “And about Crests.”

He taps the map slowly and rolls it back.

“The only Crest-related books and knowledge I gathered come from people who scavenged this place looking for treasures. They didn’t find any, so they settled to sell their findings to people like me instead.”

“So, you are telling me this place holds the answers I’m looking for?” She furrows her brow. Claude was always good at telling stories and wrapping you around his fingers, but Byleth grew tired of lies and half-truths long ago. “It seems like a reach.”

“All I’m saying is that it is the only place that I know of in Morfis that holds this sort of information. And trust me, I looked for them.”

That, she can believe. She never knew Claude all that well, but she remembers how passionate he was when Hanneman discovered she bore the Crest of Flames. In retrospect, perhaps it was all for the wrong reasons.

“You’ve come this far, you can still give it a try,” he suggests.

Her eyes wander to the old book and the forbidden drawing printed inside. When they meet his again, in an instant, she realises that perhaps, she has already fallen into his trap.

“Can you… Tell me more? About this place?” she still asks.

“I could… But I won’t.”

For the first time since their reunion, as if a switch was suddenly flipped, Claude finally flashes her a smile. It’s not exactly friendly nor sincere, though.

“Why?” Byleth asks, maintaining eye contact in a vain hope to understand his real intentions.

“You would die there,” Claude continues with that infuriating grin still painted on his face. “It’s a dangerous place, infested with monsters. And as I said, if legends are to be believed, it’s a giant maze. You would need a guide before even thinking about setting foot there.”

“Surely I can find one in Morfis,” she answers, defiantly.

“People won’t help you,” he says. “They won’t risk their lives for you, not for someone from Fódlan of all places. But you already know that, don’t you?”

His intents are clear, now, and so she stays silent.

“I could be your guide.”

Before she can answer, Claude stands up and walks towards her, dragging his bare feet on the floor. He looks down on her and examines her from head to tows. He crouches near her and his deep voice, still tinted in that strong accent, reverberates against her ears like a purr.

“I’ve studied the place quite a lot. And… I do have a debt to repay you.”

She answers him with a dark stare. “You owe me nothing.”

Claude smiles a little. “Of course.” He nods as he backs off. “I’d be lying if I said I have nothing to get out of this situation. I’ll be honest: this place always intrigued me. That map I showed you? I drew it myself based on the information I managed to gather over the years. Me the brains, and you the blade: you can see my offer as a simple exchange if the idea sounds better to your ears.”

What it sounds like is a folly, and she knows it for what it is. But Claude is right about Morfis, about how secretive the people are here. Truth to be told, she heard the rumours about this place before, one amongst the dozen Hubert wrote about. She at least knows that it’s real, and she cannot deny the existence of the book Claude showed her earlier. In the last minutes, he already told her more than anyone else during the weeks she spent there. She can at least trust that he is knowledgeable, for everyone told her about him. And if he lies… If he lies, then what’s the risk? Sure, she is not as sharp a fighter as she used to be, but looking at him, neither could he possibly be. She could probably take him down if needed. He likes to use people, but two can play this game.

Take advantage of his knowledge, learn the answers to your questions, keep him close… And if he tries to double-cross you; cut him down. It sounds simple enough. She did it before.

“When could we be back?”

When he hears her words, Claude looks like a cat ready to jump on a prey. She wants to slap him, but refrains from doing so.

“We cannot travel by day because of the sun, and it will be too cold by night. Not to mention the wild beasts out there and the bandits. Oh, and of course, there’s the exploration part itself… If we are quick, I’d say in a month. Minimum.”

 _It’s way too long,_ she thinks. “We shall leave as soon as possible, then,” is what she hears herself say.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The preparations took way less time than she expected. She, of course, was already all set to depart. When she left the inn, she was ready to leave Senerio for good should have Claude flat-out refused to help her. But for someone she visited in the middle of the night and who’s about to leave behind a store, a library, and what’s most likely years of belongings for what may be a one-way journey in company of the woman who ruined his life, Claude is suspiciously quick to pack.

When she orders her wyvern to take off, only the grunt of the animal under the additional weight of the extra luggage and passenger betrays Claude’s presence behind her on the saddle. She’d ask him to hold on to her, but she remembered he probably was a better rider than she ever was, and so she spared herself the trouble of putting herself in an uncomfortable situation.

Part of her expected—hoped—Claude would be a good travel companion and in some ways, he is. When they are high up in the sky and she sees his arm enter her field of vision to point at guiding stars and constellations, she quickly understands they will have no need for a compass as long as they travel by night. Claude seems to be knowledgeable not only about geography, but also about all the things you need to know to survive out there. The ideal hours to travel, the good places to camp for the night, the strongest wind currents to follow to alleviate some of the burden of their wyvern. He explains it all to her in a calm tone as they fly through the night sky.

When he’s done, he stays quiet and the only proof of his presence with her becomes the feeling of his chest hitting her back when her wyvern tilts its head a bit too much. Byleth remembers how talkative and easy-going Claude used to be. He always had stories about the most obscure things that he liked to share with glimmering eyes. He liked to learn, yes, but more so to share. She had a glimpse of it in the library before, but it was nothing like the old him. He seemed more calculating than sincere and somehow, the prospect of spending so much time next to the man he became freezes her blood even more than the possibility he may slice her throat when she will be asleep by a bonfire on the next night.

So, after a while, she carefully turns her head slightly to look at him. His face is turned up to the sky, his eyes fixated on the milky way. The wind, strong and cold, sends wild strand of black hair flying to his face. He seems unbothered, as if nothing but him and the giant, open sky existed in this world. His expression is empty if not a bit sad, and he doesn’t even seem to notice she’s looking at him. As if he were reciting a prayer, silent words take form on his slightly parted lips.

Like a child who witnessed something she shouldn’t have, Byleth turns her head back swiftly. She remembers how cheerful Claude sounded despite his crushing defeat and pitiful physical condition when he departed from Fódlan. Eight years is a long time. On top of her quest, she has a lot of questions for him, and little of them are the sort he will want to hear. She’s sure he has many as well. There is no doubt in her mind he wants something out of her.

“Why are you in Morfis?” she blurts out. If they are about to travel together, she may as well break the ice.

As if he broke out of a spell, Claude immediately comes back to his senses and whatever emotions stirred into him seem to disappear. She feels his body vibrating behind her when he chuckles.

“You cannot hide your accent, you know,” she continues. “Isn’t Almyra your home? Weren’t you supposed to be there?”

“Well, I could ask you the same,” he answers. “Your home is in Fódlan and yet here you are, risking your life for a reason that is still a bit blurry. Let’s say it is the same for me. You have your reasons, and I have mine. What’s life without a bit of mystery?”

That part of him, at least, hasn’t changed: he never answers questions.

“Navigating Morfis is more complicated than what I thought,” she admits. Her voice is trembling slightly, and she decides to blame the cold. “There are so many people from so many different places here, I thought they’d be more… Open. But it’s the opposite. They all act like their neighbour could murder them at any given time. They don’t over-share. They don’t trust much.”

“Indeed. Fódlan is a secluded place, but it has at least that much in common with Morfis. Here, you are a complete outsider.”

“You also stand out,” Byleth points out. “I heard how these people talked about you. And yet, you’ve been living here for a long time, haven't you…?”

“You seem to believe I’m an outcast,” he deflects. “It’s not like I’m treated differently. No one ends up in Senerio by chance, you know. Everyone here arrived carrying some sort of baggage and a trouble past. I’m no exception. Can you really blame them?”

“Mmh…”

“I know what you’re thinking. But there’s a big difference between you and me, Byleth. I’m used to it.”

 _Is this why you flew away from Almyra, then?_ she wants to ask him. She keeps her mouth shut instead.

Byleth goes quiet and Claude considers her figure with heavy-lidded eyes. All he really sees is her back and her dark hair that seems to swallow the moonlight. He’s been thinking about this moment for a very long time. It’s not exactly how he imagined things would turn out, nor what he expected, but it shall do. He must proceed carefully now. He still has questions, after all. And plans.

Thankfully, Claude has a quality no one ever suspected: he’s always been the most patient man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more of a transition chapter I guess, and the end of what I'd call the introduction. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and for your kind comments during these trying times :)


	4. Hunters and Preys

Jeralt taught her how to fish as soon as she could hold a fishing rod. It was the ideal occupation for the silent and collected little girl she was, the perfect balance between an exercise of patience and a test of strength. He’d let her there, sitting on the banks of a river or a lake, her bare feet in the water, as he went his way to chat with his men or to train. Byleth, her big blue eyes wide open, would look at the surface of the water as if she could read the destiny of the world in the ripples forming around the string of her fishing rod. Her father often told her that she didn’t need to be that attentive, but she never changed her ways.

Fishing was perhaps her preferred hobby, the only constant in a life full of twists and turns. Even years after the war ended and doubt sometimes still clouded her mind, fishing was her way out. Alone with the fish, it was almost as she used to be back then, before she joined Garreg Mach in what felt like another life. Calm, cold, and without a single intrusive thought. This was how she survived the hardest days and the sleepless nights full of nightmares.

“Do you regret the person you were before?” her love asked her once, and she answered “no”. Every decision she had taken brought her right where she was. There was nothing to regret, nor the good, neither the bad. But it was a pious lie and the truth was, that path she had carved for herself sometimes felt like a prison.

One day he left, and he never returned. She grew quieter still. Her friends, who cared deeply about her, were worried about her hobby that seemed to drive her away from them a little more with every passing day. They wanted to see her happy and lively again, they wanted their old Professor back.

That’s how, one day, Byleth got invited to a hunt. She didn’t say a word about it and simply accepted, but she had always despised the way the nobles did it. One frightened animal against a horde of a hundred dogs, the hunters following suite as their preys ran, and ran and ran until their legs gave in. It looked like an unnecessarily cruel game.

But it was also a tradition, and Ferdinand and Edelgard thought it would be a good idea to initiate her, hoping it would lift her spirits. Despite their differences, the two of them shared a common education, and hunting was part of it. It was hard to tell if Edelgard really liked it or if she complied out of tradition, but they organised one every year on the anniversary of the victory at Fhirdiad.

For the longest time, Byleth managed to find excuses to be absent. She was busy, doing things left and right somewhere else in the Empire, far from the capital. But that year, for the first time, she had none. She could sense that everyone was worried about her, and so she promised she would make an effort, that she wouldn’t stay alone in her big, empty house when she should be celebrating instead.

They had sent a hound the day prior to track the ideal prey. They wanted a wild board, the noblest and most dangerous opponent of them all, but failed to find one. Instead, they identified a stag.

 _It’s excellent news_ , Edelgard said then, _they always put up a good fight_. And so it did.

The hunt lasted the whole day. The animal multiplied stratagems to try to escape and lose its purchasers. Byleth followed Edelgard and Ferdinand from a distance, doing everything they told her to, trying her best so she wouldn’t disturb the hunt. In her head, though, a part of her couldn’t help but pray for the animal, hope that it would find a way out. Yes, Byleth had little pity for the fish that were fool enough to bite into her baits, but the prey they spent hours chasing that day stirred something deep within her.

She used to be both in the past; the hunter and the prey. She remembered what it felt like, to be tracked by two glowing red eyes in the bowels of Garreg Mach. And she remembered even more vividly when _she_ was the hunter and she chased after the enemy commander who was trying to run away. She never forgot what she felt that day, on the Great Bridge of Myrddin. She didn’t like either position.

They finally circled the animal as the sun was starting to set. Collapsed on the ground, it simply had no strength left to hold on its legs anymore. Byleth, who had spent the whole hunt at the rear of the party, observed the animal for the first time.

 _It’s not a stag_ , she figured out, _it’s a doe_.

Edelgard, on her right, offered her a dagger without saying a word. It was for the final act, one of mercy. Byleth didn’t want to do it, but she knew it was a great honour and an offer she couldn’t possibly refuse. And so, she took the dagger in her hand, eyes still fixated on the doe.

She jumped off her horse and the muddy ground suddenly turned into paving under her feet. In her ears, there weren’t any barking dogs anymore, just crying seagulls. The ruffling sound of the forest got replaced by the melody of a flowing river. She walked towards her agonising prey, blade in her hand. The crowd was silent then, or maybe it was just that their screams couldn’t reach her anymore. Byleth came closer and she crouched near her victim that let out a groan, tried to kick her but failed miserably to reach. As Byleth moved the dagger near her throat, she looked one last time into her big eyes. Her body language was one of defiance, but her eyes were full of the most primal fear, of a will to fight back and to survive a battle they both knew was already lost. A cruel, meaningless death.

_Claude, I’m sorry. I couldn’t defend the bridge._

The blade cut into the flesh as if it were butter and one last, bone-chilling cry shook Byleth to her very core. In an ultimate spasm, blood flowed onto her hands, her feet, everywhere.

She stood up, dagger still in her hand, and the horns cried from all directions. The hallucinatory scenery suddenly disappeared around her; all that was left was the open field and the Imperial court. The hunt was over and it was strange, but it felt like it had barely begun.

After this day, she stopped dreaming about what happened at the Great Bridge. It was a relief but instead, all she ever saw behind her eyelids at night were the big, black eyes of the doe, urging her to finish it.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The cries of the cicadas are deafening. Even under the canopy, it’s way too hot to do much more than what they are doing—walking at an agonisingly slow pace, that is. Claude is leading the march, a stick in his right hand and eyes fixated on the ground. He suddenly stops, drags his right foot in the dirt, and crouches.

“I think this is a good spot,” he says, tapping the earth with the palm of his hand. He considers his stick for a minute and extends a hand behind him in Byleth’s direction.

“Give me your dagger.”

There were, it is now obvious, several flaws in her plan. The first one was how much she underestimated the weather. Claude had warned her, sure, but she couldn’t possibly imagine how bad it would get. She really hadn’t travelled that much in Morfis, and certainly not that far south. It’s impossibly hot during the day and freezing cold during the night. Their wyvern is having a hard time keeping up. They decided on a common accord that they would rest during the hottest hours of the day and resume their travel as soon as the temperature starts becoming warmer nearing the end of the night. Alone, Byleth knows that she probably wouldn’t have bothered as much, but Claude, while not directly aggressive about it, is uncompromising when it comes to the well-being of their mount. Which leads to her second issue: Claude. He’s unnerving.

He never seems to sleep. Byleth suspects he does, because he has to at some point, probably when he disappears for an hour or two when she sets their camp, but this also means that he’s well awoken when _she_ wants to take a rest. Of course, under other circumstances, some that would have her travelled with someone she actually trusts, the ideal situation would be to take turns. But she finds it hard, if not impossible, to really fully rest when he’s near her. It seems like sleep never comes to visit him, his eyes always glued on his books, reading or writing something into that small diary with a red cover that never leaves his pocket.

She tried to appease her mind on the first night, went through his things when he was away. It was not a proper thing to do, but to hell with good manners: her safety came first and his big bag intrigued her. She found not much more than books, parchments and vials inside. The closest thing to a weapon was a pocket knife and pair of scissors. She was surprised that he didn’t bring anything to defend himself, not even a bow, and this made her realise that what he had told her before— _me the brains, and you the blade_ —was more than a simple image. She is effectively acting as his bodyguard. Except he isn’t paying her, and _he_ was supposed to be the one helping her initially, not the other way around.

She came more prepared than him, but not by much. All she has to defend herself is her father’s dagger and a short iron sword. This means that if there will be enough time to buy the necessary supplies when they reach their destination, they are close to naked during this trip, with the bare minimum to protect themselves. And Byleth is not so keen to share anyway.

She still draws the dagger resting at her waist and puts it inside his hand.

“Thanks,” Claude says without even turning around. He goes back to his trap.

Maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but she finds his silhouette oddly familiar. His leading style was never of the traditional type. When the Blue Lions and the Black Eagles were always well organised before a battle, with a map well laid in front of them, the Golden Deer often stood in a circle, Claude crouched in the centre, tracing his battle plans into the mud with a stick. From this angle, his back turned to her, he looks the same as he did back then: a lean body of average height and an undignified posture. Even the silver ring on his left ear hasn’t changed.

Claude curses a little as he fails to knot the string properly with his trembling fingers, but he finally manages to finish his noose.

“I hope we can catch something before it gets too dark,” he says, standing up. “Delhia will love the fresh meat.”

Delhia is Byleth’s wyvern. She didn’t really have a name, so Claude found one for her. He seems to really like animals.

“I’m confident we will be lucky, I spotted a hole nearby. If this one doesn’t do it, the other one should,” Claude adds. From the excitement in his voice, Byleth figures Delhia won’t be the only one grumpy if they fail to catch a prey for dinner.

Claude dusts his pants and Byleth extends a hand to him, eyes fixated on the dagger still into his. Claude’s expression becomes stern. He freezes on the spot.

There is _something_ in the bushes behind Byleth. An animal. The creature’s fur meshes so well with its environment, most people wouldn’t have been able to spot it. But Claude has the sharp eye of an experienced hunter and of a marksman. His grip tightens around the dagger hilt. He takes an attack stance. The creature knows it’s been uncovered, its dark eyes, two black orbs in the middle of shades of green and beige, gleam with a vicious hunger.

“Don’t move.”

Byleth looks confused for only a second. Her hand goes to her sword by reflex.

“I said: don’t move,” Claude hisses through his teeth. “Behind you, to your left… There’s a sphinx.”

Byleth heard about these. They are wild animals, a bit like cats. But bigger. And not exactly bothered at the idea of tasting human flesh.

Claude’s eyes are fixated behind her. He grips her dagger so firmly into his right hand his knuckles are turning white.

“It’s going to attack you,” he says. “It will jump, aim for your throat and break your neck.”

Byleth frowns a little at the thought.

“If it’s any comfort, I’m next on the list.”

Byleth hears the plants ruffle behind her. It’s really hot, but a shiver runs down her spine.

“When I give you the signal,” Claude continues almost in a whisper, “turn around and slash it. It will be powerless if you manage to catch it mid-air.”

For now, the sphinx doesn’t bother hiding its presence anymore. The creature walks up and down in the bushes, eyes fixated on Claude as if it were trying to read into his intentions.

Suddenly, it stops moving.

“Turn around, now!” Claude shouts as the sphinx jumps ahead.

Byleth does not turn around. Not immediately, at least. There is definitely something behind her, she can tell as much, but a part of her brain warns her there’s another threat right in front of her, one she armed herself—and that she’d rather not turn her back to. Caught between two fires, in a split second she sees Claude goes livid and she hears a growl behind her.

She draws her sword and swings around in one swift motion.

She forgets all about the Almyran man and his dagger behind her when she sees the feline jumping at her. Its impossible mouth is full of giant, sharp teeth; its dark eyes two bottomless pits. The creature moves like a cat and as Claude predicted, it’s aiming for her neck. The motion is easy enough to anticipate, but Byleth already lost too much time. The predator is already on her when she crouches to dodge the fangs and raises her blade. When the creature plunges over her, she loses balance and stumbles under the weight. She falls on her ass and her back hit the ground as the claws brushes over her shoulder and her sword tears through the flesh. The sphinx growls as its stomach opens up, gore splashing everywhere over Byleth. Pinned down to the ground as the animal impales itself on her sword up to the hilt, Byleth is stuck so close to the body she could swear she feels the breath of life escaping its lungs.

“Are you alright?”

Claude’s voice is muffled by the kilos of muscles, flesh and fur of the animal above her, but Byleth can still discern a hint of amusement in his tone. She wants to answer something but her face is buried into intestines and so she keeps her mouth shut instead. She feels Claude pulling on the body as she pushes on the hilt of her sword to help him out. She lets out a cry as she extricates herself.

“Damn it!”

The body falls to its side right beside her. She crawls away from it.

“That was close,” Claude states, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I guess at least Delhia won’t have to worry about dinner now.”

He pets the head of the animal, a certain tenderness in his eyes. Then, he brings two fingers to his mouth and he whistles three times. In the matter of a minute, a deep growl is heard and Delhia lands right by his side. She looks at the corpse, then at Claude, as if waiting for his permission. He nods and she wastes no time eating her dinner.

Claude observes Byleth, still on the ground. She watches the feast in front of her with a mix of awe and disgust. He winces.

“You need a bath.”

“Ah…”

Distracted from her show, she looks at herself and grimaces. She’s covered in blood. Gore and faecal matter are sticking to her clothes and to her hair. There are already flies all around her.

“There’s a spring nearby, right?” she asks him. They chose this location to camp for this sole reason.

“I’ll show you,” Claude says, lending her a hand to stand up that she accepts without thinking too much about it.

When he pulls on it, she winces a little.

“It got your shoulder, didn’t it?” he observes.

She shrugs. “It’s only superficial.”

“I’ll find some herbs.” Claude nods. “It could get infected.”

He can be useful when he wants to.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The water is clear and cool.

Byleth swims into the pool, leaving behind her a red trail that turns pink as it dissolves into the water. It’s not her blood, but the sting on her shoulder reminds her that it could have been. She was careless, back there. This close call can at least serve as a reminder; that being too distrustful can also play against you.

She immerses her head and empties her lungs inside the water. She cannot continue like that. A few more seconds and it’s her body that would be feeding Delhia. There is the lack of sleep, of course, but the main issue is her total incapacity to turn her back to Claude. If their destination is as dangerous as he implied, they won’t make it out alive if she doesn’t manage to trust him. She needs to have a heart to heart with him and to settle things for good. The sooner the better.

At the moment, Claude is nowhere to be seen. He took his leave the second Byleth started to undress, pretexting he needed to find some medicinal herbs. For someone who used to boast about how different he is from these “stuck-up nobles”, he sure isn’t used to the mercenary life either. Otherwise, he would probably understand what travelling with someone else entails.

Byleth gets out of the water. She inspects her clothes that are still drying on a rock. Nearby, she finds Claude’s cloak with a small bowl beside it. She smells the mud inside and analyses the odour. Black root. An antiseptic.

Claude doesn’t say a thing when she comes back to their camp dressed in his clothes, but something in his eyes tells her he’s relieved she didn’t show up half-naked.

“Thank you for the unguent,” Byleth says, taking a seat around the fire pit. The sun is starting to decline and it’s already a bit chilling.

“I checked the traps,” Claude says. “No luck. So it’s dry meat again for us, tonight.”

Byleth eyes at the pouch full of meat at his feet. She has to admit she’s also a bit disappointed.

Claude stirs something inside the pot sitting on the embers and pours a dark liquid inside a bowl. He hands it to her without saying a word.

“What is it?” Byleth asks without taking it.

“It will help you to find sleep.” He puts the smoking bowl right in front of her. “Of course,” he continues, “I’m assuming your faux pas from before was because you lacked sleep. That, and nothing else.”

Byleth looks at the beverage with a suspicious eye. Claude grabs it and drinks a mouthful.

“Hot!” He grimaces. “ _And_ _still not poisoned_.”

Byleth blushes a little and takes the bowl from his hand.

“I have to admit,” Claude continues, speaking for two, “I’m surprised you followed me so easily. Since obviously, you don’t trust me at all.”

“I just weighed the benefits and the risks,” Byleth says, eyes fixated on the black liquid. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t put much hope into this expedition. But I do have questions for you, so it’s convenient.”

“So, this is why you are putting up with me, eh? Is this really all worth the trouble?”

“I could ask you the same, is this worth the trouble for you?”

“I told you, I have a good reason to be here. I know you are suspecting me of many things, I see it well enough, to the point I’m wondering why you are taking this risk at all. You quest has to be an important task, indeed…”

She shrugs. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Oof. Cold! And a bit presumptuous.”

Claude bites into a chunk of dried meat.

“Do you think you can win against me?” Byleth asks. _Don’t you remember how it ended up the last time?_ is the underlying question.

“Not really.” He shrugs. “Not if we play it fair, anyway. But it wasn’t what I meant. You are presumptuous in assuming I’d want to harm you to begin with.” He lets out a sight and tilts his head a little to catch her eyes. “You seem to hate me Byleth, and I really don’t understand why.”

He interrogates her with his green eyes and Byleth wonders if he’s feigning ignorance, or if he truly forgot. She didn’t—couldn’t—forget. The Locket wasn’t that long ago. She has no direct proof, of course, that he was involved. But she has learnt with time that you don’t always need to hear a proper confession. Sometimes, a body of evidence is enough.

Your average Almyran generals aren’t known for underhanded tactics. Claude is.

The Almyrans have no knowledge of the internal operation of the fortress. Claude does.

Claude also knows about the specifics of the secret entrances to the fortress, about the art of poisons and about the village downstream that is supplied in drinking water by the spring located below the Locket.

And Claude knows it all because for five long years, he occupied the most influential and powerful position in the Alliance. No matter how she looks at it, he is the only immutable variable in this equation.

“Do you know what happened at the Locket, two years ago?” she finally asks.

Claude diverts his gaze.

“So this is what it’s all about,” he says with a small voice.

He looks at the piece of meat inside his hands for a few seconds before he continues. “You are just like Edelgard: short-sighted. I will admit that I am Almyran. But if I am to blame for all the bad deeds of a nation, then it would make me the most dangerous criminal on this whole planet. Hell, of all history, for all I know.”

He tries to dissimulate the anger in his voice, but his dark eyes betray him.

“There is a spring down below the fortress,” Byleth continues as if she had not heard his cutting remark. “And inside the Locket, there is a pump. It’s a really inventive technology to bring drinking water to the villages nearby. The Church installed it.” She pauses. “Someone poisoned the spring. Men, women, children, elderly: they all died. They were civilians. It was gratuitous and cruel… But it filled its purpose.” She gives Claude a dark gaze. “A diversion.”

“I’m glad I’m occupying a special place into your thoughts,” he mocks, “but no, unlike your little Princess waging war on the whole continent and sending her army after neutral territories, I would never, ever, led a hand on an innocent person.”

Claude’s words touch a nerve and Byleth immediately rises to her feet.

“You know changes had to happen!” she almost shouts. “We only ever attacked soldiers… We —”

“It was just a jest,” Claude deadpans. With a movement of the hand, he invites her to sit down again.

“Look… I understand your suspicions,” he continues. “But _you_ are the one who barged into my house unannounced, you know? I’ve been living here for four years, how could have I planned an attack like this in the first place from the other side of the world?”

“I didn’t think about the specifics,” Byleth admits. “All I know is that very few people had access to the sort of information needed for this strategy to succeed. And you are one of them.” 

Claude nods slowly, looking for a comeback. “Only one of them, then. And so are the Gonerils.” 

_The Gonerils?_

“What are you implying?” 

Claude takes another slice of meat and bites into it.

“A tale as old as humanity: revenge. Holst Goneril loved Hilda … and you killed her.” He spills that last sentence with a hint of bitterness Byleth doesn’t fail to notice. 

“Do you really think Holst Goneril is the sort of person who would compromise Fódlan’s safety for … revenge?” This had to be another joke.

“You are not seeing things from the right angle, Byleth. The goal of the person who poisoned the spring was never aimed at Fódlan as a whole. It was aimed at the Emperor … and at you.”

“At me?”

“See… This plan relied on a diversion, but not in the way you are envisaging.”

“I’m not following you.” 

“It was a dirty, cruel scheme, but one that would manage to hurt you without putting whatever remained of Holst’s family and of the Alliance at risk. And to kill two birds with one stone, he knew he could pin it on the Almyrans so he could get out of the situation with his hands clean. It didn’t matter that the Almyrans won or lost that battle. All that mattered was that they were there. Because Holst already got his revenge the second he saw you and Edelgard with the blood of innocents on your hands. I’m sure he is very familiar with that feeling as well… That he feels guilty he let his dear little sister die far from home for a man like me. Because you feel guilty, don’t you? … About what happened… And that you failed to prevent.” 

Byleth lets out a breath. 

Claude is right, but she would never admit it to his face. They always only ever looked at this strategy from a surface level. They always assumed it was nothing but a diversion, that the poisoning and the raid where both the scheme of one, same person. But if Claude is right, then they were two separate events.

“If I ever had a role to play in this whole ordeal, it’s probably just that Holst and I both enjoyed some evenings talking together. He knew about your weak spot. Because we all saw, at the Academy, how blemish you were when you came back from that strange mission in Remire Village.” 

“But how would Holst Goneril even know about this...?” 

“Hilda. She wrote to her brother every other week. They were really close.”

“Ah. So, you are telling me that Holst killed innocents to hurt me? And that he waited for the ideal moment so he could put the blame on the Almyrans? It’s…”

“It’s just my theory.” Claude shrugs. “It’s not like Holst could attack you directly without risking his whole family. He aimed where it would hurt you the most: at innocent lives. And you had friends in that village, didn’t you?”

Claude adds nothing more. As if the matter was now settled once and for all, he gets his red diary and starts writing something inside. 

Byleth observes him and replays their conversation in her head. She meticulously dissects his arguments and the more she thinks about it, the more it makes sense.

In retrospect, it’s true that she was surprised by how little Holst Goneril seemed to care about what happened at Derdriu. She always assumed it was because the Empire had immediately come to his rescue after the Alliance surrendered… And it’s true both Edelgard and her were personally very affected by the Tragedy of the Locket, more than they would have been under any other circumstances. They both lived in the end, but if the taste of bile in her mouth is to be believed, the harm was already done.

Yes, the plan seems complex and twisted at first glance, but when you think about it, such a strategy only really required Holst to know about the incoming Almyran attack, which was an easy task for someone living on the border. And the icing on the cake… He could put the blame on the Almyrans. They would be the perfect scapegoats; no one would ever suspect him, of all people. No one would believe the Almyrans’ words—and no one did. It was a risky, bloody strategy, one that could have easily backfired. And it was vicious and cruel, but such is the face that revenge often takes. And she saw plans more ambitious. Holst, after all, was taught by the best—Claude himself.

“Would have Holst Goneril really hidden his game for so long?” she says aloud, more to herself than for Claude. “For six, long years...?” 

Claude forgets about his book for a moment and raises his eyes to her. 

“You know what they say… Revenge is best served cold.” 

Edelgard and Hubert are indeed very familiar with that concept. 

“Of course, I talked about Holst, but anyone with the same information at disposition could have done it. The Daphnels, the Ordelias… You made a lot of enemies, I’m sure you are at least aware of that.” 

Byleth gulps and Claude crooks a finger at her, urging her to come closer. She bends over the dying embers of the fire pit.

“Now, let me tell you a secret…” he murmurs in her ear. “I just made up this whole story on the fly.” 

Byleth blushes furiously and pushes him away. Claude fells on his ass and refrains a smile. 

“You...! Are you mocking me?” she shouts at him.

“I’m not, I’m not!” He painfully sits back to the slump he was using as a seat. “I only have one truth: I was in Morfis the whole time. The merchant I told you about, he sold me these books three years ago. When we reach our destination, you can meet with him and he’ll be able to tell you as much.” 

“Then why … why didn’t you just tell me that before?” she screams, but she’s more furious at herself for believing so easily his words and indulging into this twisted theory than at him. 

“I did! And it’s not as easy as saying, ‘I wasn’t there! I did nothing!' Because you really think I’m involved into this, don’t you? But you are failing to ask yourself the most basic question. Why would I have done something like that? As far as I’m concerned, we parted as friends!”

“You said it yourself. Maybe you just wanted revenge.”

“Revenge?” He blinks. “Once again, I think you are mistaking me for your precious little Princess. The past is in the past. You wanted a culprit; I gave you one. Draw your own conclusions. No one will ever know the truth anyway.”

Claude stands up and looks for something inside his bag. He takes out a blanket that he lays on the floor.

“I just wanted you to understand that sometimes, you need to look at the bigger picture,” he says with a dry voice. “Now if you’ll excuse me… Since one of us has to be able to ride this wyvern tomorrow, I’m going to sleep first. Feel free to stay awake the whole time if you want.”

He lies down on his blanket and turns his back to her. Byleth stays quiet in front of her dinner she still hasn’t touched.

When they reach their destination, she will be able to check his alibi. For now, she will have no other choice than to take him to his words. She glances at his back as the sky grows darker. He looks open and vulnerable for the first time, as if he wanted to prove a point.

 _Look at the bigger picture_.

The pieces fit together so well; she never envisioned another possibility. It had to be him. Once she made that postulate, it was all she could ever see. She blamed him, and by extension, she blamed herself—the person who allowed him to live in the first place, the one who planted the seed of hatred and revenge into his heart.

She starts drinking the surprisingly sweet beverage he prepared for her.

 _Claude should have hated me enough to do it_ , she thinks. _Right?_

Yes, ultimately, this is what bothers her the most with his theory; the idea that he somehow forgave her.

She empties her cup and stands up. Her eyes wander to a bush a few metres away. The branches look robust and flexible. She takes the dagger Claude left in evidence near her spot and cuts a branch. If it’s too difficult to sleep and too painful to think, then there’s only one thing to do tonight: to fish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this chapter a bit early (more like the previous one was late...), but the next chapter will probably be delayed by a week or so because of real life stuff. Or maybe I'll find the strength to publish it earlier... We'll see.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and thank you to everyone who's commenting. It gives me the fuel to continue!


	5. Old Wounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember when I said "I'm gonna make shorter chapters"? It was a nice one. Anyway, I expected this one to be late, but it's actually not, so enjoy!

During the time they spent together at the Academy, Felix and Byleth were friends. Felix was not talkative, but his words and his mind were sharp, much like his blade. Byleth was the same and naturally, they got along. They often met at sunset in the training grounds to spar, and their weapons spoke more than mere words.

Felix reminded her of the brash boys who often challenged her back when she was part of her father’s mercenary company. She liked to hang out with Dorothea, of course, but she always was more of a tomboy, and Felix was the only man around comfortable enough to treat her like she truly wanted. He was only a few years younger than her and in his eyes, they were equals. When she’d find some fine steel at the marketplace, she’d buy it for him. In return, he taught her some techniques he learnt from his father.

One day, Felix asked to be transferred to her class, and she declined. Byleth cannot remember exactly what reason she gave him, maybe that staying with his friends would be better for him, or that Manuela would be mad at her for stealing her ace student. Byleth forgot because it did not matter at that time. Felix simply nodded, took his leave and on the following day, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

She only understood the consequences of that seemingly innocent choice years later, when they faced each other in Arianrhod. Felix had not changed much. His eyes were cold, sharp as ever. Not even once did he acknowledge her existence; it was as if she were a complete stranger to him, and not the woman he spent so many evenings sparring with.

Their blades clashed for a few seconds and it was like nothing had changed. Felix still moved in the way he always did. His tricks were more polished, but he couldn’t go against his nature. Because of that, Byleth knew exactly what the outcome of their fight would be.

She doesn’t recall when she last dreamt so vividly about him. These past few nights have been restless with her. When it’s not Felix, it’s Leonie or Hilda. It doesn’t take much to realise why they are suddenly back into her mind when lately, her every waking thoughts have been turned to another ghost from her past—albeit one much more tangible than them.

She keeps thinking about what Claude told her. Look at the bigger picture. 

It was no secret to her nor to anyone else that Byleth took a lot after the people she stayed with. How couldn’t she? She was never truly human before, and her friends shaped the woman she became. She took after them all, but after Edelgard the most. She was like a burning fire, both comforting and destructive. On the ashes she left behind her steps, a new life was born again; stronger than before, brighter. Byleth followed Edelgard almost religiously on this bloody path, listening to her pleads and her ambitions, obeying her orders with complete trust in her judgement. She became her blade and her shadow, and during the hardest nights, she often wondered how she would have turned out if her guiding light had been someone else. Someone less overwhelming, less resolute. Would have she been able to stand for herself? To believe in a cause? To demand justice? Would she be a tyrant or a martyr?

Then one day, during the war, she felt herself drifting away. It was subtle at first, like a small voice in her head trying to tell her something, but that was so low, she couldn’t really make out the words. The voice became louder and louder as the years passed by, the words more defined, until she couldn’t ignore them anymore. As life followed its course, she felt the gap between her and her protégé growing wider. When Claude’s name flew out of the Emperor’s lips as they walked amidst the corpses of the villagers, she accepted it as an evidence. Looking back, she now wonders if she would have reached the same conclusion by herself.

 _You claim you never liked him and yet, you spared him in Derdriu against Edelgard’s will. Why?_ the voice asks her. _What did you see in him back then that Edelgard and Hubert failed to discern...?_

She isn’t sure of the answer, just that she had started to question herself on the day they attacked the Alliance. And when Derdriu appeared on the horizon, she truly thought for herself. She looked at the bigger picture. She decided to spare Claude. His arguments were sound and it seemed like a rational decision, back then. But was it?

And so, she observes him. This time, not with hatred in her heart, but with cold, impartial eyes.

Most of the time, he looks unconcerned, captivated by whatever he’s reading inside his books. She’s getting familiar with the way he sighs when she says something that disappoints him, but that he won’t acknowledge directly. He furrows his brow when he tries to understand something complicated. He deflects the questions she asks him when he doesn’t want to answer them. He has always been like that, as far as she can remember. But there is something more about him: this façade he’s keeping up for her, he isn’t even pretending to hide it. To put it bluntly, he doesn’t give a damn anymore.

Ever since their altercation a few days ago, though, he seems more open. Or perhaps, “open” isn’t the right word, since he surely didn’t become more talkative, but a least he doesn’t hide away anymore to sleep.

“Spar with me,” Byleth asks him.

Claude raises his eyes from his book. She can read the title of this one: _Desert flora and fauna, volume III_.

“Spar?” he asks, adjusting his glasses.

“You told me it would be a dangerous place, didn’t you?”

He turns the book to show her what is inside. On the pages, hideous creatures are drawn, monsters with human features but also claws and pointy teeth.

“Gargoyles, mostly,” he says. “They are nasty, or so I heard. But we will be there in a few days. It’s a bit too late to worry about that, don’t you think?”

“I’m a bit rusty from training alone. I want to make sure.”

Even in Enbarr, Byleth was always alone as everyone else was quick to forget about the war. But fighting was as much a part of herself as her own DNA, and so she kept training, day after day, sparring with dummies.

“You got that sphinx pretty good the other day,” Claude says, an insolent smile on his face. He never loses the opportunity to remind her about that incident.

“ _You_ look rusty as well,” she retorts.

It’s a low blow considering his general state but provoking him will at least get a reaction out of him. Men are proud. Claude sighs his “done with you” sigh, and gets up.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

A blade doesn’t lie. Byleth, Felix and Jeritza, who lived their whole life by and for the sword, could at least agree about that. That’s why she asked Claude to spar with her, albeit they aren’t using real weapons, but only sticks arranged to mimic swords. Claude’s body language, she is sure, will tell her more about him than his mask and his half-truths ever would. She wants to see it, his true self, since he pretends he’s not a liar nor a murderer.

The conclusion, at first, is pretty alarming. He didn’t even bother to change clothes.

 _He really doesn’t give a damn_ , she thinks.

Byleth never sparred with him before and never saw him fight with a sword, but she knows he’s supposedly good with one. He proves her right, twirling his weapon between his fingers with dexterity. But that’s only for show, the type of tricks brats use to impress young maidens, and she doesn’t fit into that category.

Byleth moves like a wolf and Claude like a cat. His steps are light, almost playful, like he is caught up in a dance. His leg work is dissimulated by his large pants, making his movements harder to predict. Byleth is the opposite: completely transparent. That’s mostly because her strong point is her technique. She has the raw power; he has the tricks.

They walk in circles, facing each other. From time to time, they test the waters and their weapons clash a little, almost teasingly. Byleth is as stoic as ever. Claude, who initially didn’t seem so motivated by the exercise, is now amused.

“So, what do you think, Professor? Do I deserve an A?” he mocks. He lunges, left arm behind his back, and she parries the blow easily.

“Playing coy was more charming when you were younger,” she retorts. When he feints another assault, she taps on his shoulder with the tip of her weapon.

“‘Charming’, eh. So you felt more than just suspicion for me back then?”

Well, it didn’t matter how much she distrusted him, it was hard to deny there was something about his boyish, roguish face. It’s what made him dangerous in the first place. He was beautiful, and easy to like.

“Your posture.” She taps his hip and he draws back a little.

So far, his fighting style is flashy but not exactly effective. It’s neither from Fódlan nor from Almyra. Maybe he learnt it from a specific instructor, or maybe he is self-taught. In any case, he acts more like a dancer than a proper fighter.

She squints after he makes yet another pirouette. No, it’s not that. He’s subtle about it, but he’s simply trying to protect his left flank. Is he dissimulating a weakness? Or a wound?

To put her theory to the test, Byleth switches her weapon to her other hand. She is more agile with her right one, but she knows how to use both. You never know when it could prove useful, after all. She is quick about it and immediately begins her assault on Claude.

He barely has the time to register what’s going on nor to adjust to the change as she aims directly for his left arm. Her speculations prove right when in response, instead of trying to parry, Claude has a visceral reaction that betrays his fear: he awkwardly turns his body to protect himself.

The strike lands violently on his biceps. If it were a real fight, his limb would be lying on the ground. Instead, under the impact, Claude loses his balance and stumbles. When he tries to cushion his fall with his left arm, it pathetically gives way under his weight. He lets out a curse before he lands headfirst in the dirt.

Byleth wipes the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and watches him amused as he lies there like a broken toy. It’s a clear win.

“Are you alright?” she asks with a hint of mockery in her voice.

Claude doesn’t answer and he doesn’t move.

“Did you hurt yourself?” she asks again, mildly concerned. Maybe she went too hard on him.

She moves closer and kneels down next to him.

“Did you hit your head? Claude?”

What happens next is the oldest trick in the world: Claude turns around swiftly and throws a fistful of sand right into her eyes.

She is not there anymore, but Byleth can almost hear Sothis’ voice resonating inside her head.

_You fool! You fool!_

Taken by surprise, she lets out a shriek and tumbles. She has no time to register nor to react with more than a curse that Claude is already throwing himself at her. He kicks her guts violently with his knee and crushes into her, pining her body on the ground with the weight of his own. His left forearm is firmly pressed against her chest to hinder her respiration and slowly, he interlaces their legs to prevent her from moving.

Byleth is a seasoned fighter and she excels in melee. She evaluates he is light-weighted and strangely weak. His posture is good and betrays his knowledge of the martial arts, but his grip is not nearly as strong as it should to pin her down properly. She could easily knock him down and have him eat dirt a second time… If it weren’t for the distinct feeling of metal pressed firmly against her throat.

She forces her eyes open—and it hurts because of the sand—and she sees the jet-black blade in his right hand. Hubert’s dagger.

She completely forgot about it, carefully secured inside her bag. She doesn’t know when exactly, but Claude obviously had fun going through her things at some point. It’s only fair, she supposes, since she did the exact same thing to him.

Claude’s face, hanging just above hers, barely looks like him anymore. Usually composed, it is now deformed by anger and other feelings she cannot decipher, covered in dirt, sweat and spit. The blade cuts into Byleth’s flesh and she feels blood flowing down the back of her neck.

 _This is not a game anymore_. _He’s going to kill me._

Was he waiting for this opportunity all along? For her to drop her guard, to soften up enough she’d stop thinking about his twisted schemes?

He looks into her eyes and he seems lost. She knows this face, she saw it once. Her mind goes blank as she remembers Hilda, who stood to protect him until her last breath. Lysithea who never surrendered even when she could have lived. Judith, that she took down as she was running away. Ignatz who fought like a lion. And Leonie, who screamed at the top of her lungs “Traitor!”

It’s only fair.

“What are you waiting for?” she murmurs. Her voice is calmer than it should.

She is not afraid to die. There has not been a single day when she didn’t think about the bodies she left in her path. But if her death today is the price to pay for Edelgard’s dreams, for Fódlan’s dawn, then so be it. She thinks about Edelgard’s smile, about her last embrace and her carefully painted nails, about her tears of joy when they finally defeated Rhea, and about those that came after, when everyone slowly realised it was all over. If she has one regret, it is to know that she failed to keep the promise she made to Hubert. That she failed Edelgard.

Claude looks raw and vulnerable, like an open wound. She understands, now. What she reads into his eyes isn’t anger; it’s a profound sadness. And somehow, it cuts even deeper than the steel biting her flesh.

“What are _you_ waiting for?” he finally spits at her. “One little trick and you are already out? Is that all there is to the Ashen Demon? Really?”

Byleth says nothing. She slowly shakes her head and closes her eyes. After what feels like an eternity, Claude lets his forehead rest on her collarbone. She feels the blade leaving her throat and she hears the distinctive sound of metal as it touches the ground. Claude chuckles and it almost sounds like a sob.

“It’s my win, then,” he murmurs.

He finally lets go of her, sits up and rubs the dirt off his face. His eyes are red, but he looks like himself again, albeit even more dishevelled than usual.

Byleth catches up her breath for a moment. Strangely, her heartbeat had remained as calm as ever. She stands up.

“You are not making things easy, you know that?” she says looking at Claude. “But I have to commend you for your little … trick. You took me by surprise.”

Claude laughs a little, a sound foreign and charming.

“Eh. You weren’t so bad yourself,” he says. He flaps his left arm. “You really went for the weak spot.”

“Your arm…”

He shakes his head. “Oh, it’s nothing of importance. Just an accident last year. It was my fault. But it’s getting better.”

“Did you see a doctor?” She highly doubt it.

“I … did not.” He scratches the back of his head. “But it doesn’t matter, I have other tricks up my sleeve. I won’t be a burden.”

He gets back up and dusts his pants.

“I doubt pocket sand and hidden weapons are of much use against monsters,” Byleth says.

“That, they aren’t. But I learnt a thing or two about magic. You’ll see.” He winks at her.

Byleth watches him as he prepares the campsite for the night, adding wood to the fire and making sure Delhia is alright. Her fingers go to her neck, where she can still feel the bite of the blade.

What a strange man he is. A few minutes ago, he had her life in his hands, and now they are exchanging words as if they were the best friends in the world. It should frighten her, but it doesn’t. Despite the way he acted, nothing else in him betrayed a will to kill. Is this who he is? Who he _really_ is?

It’s without a word that she takes her place beside him in front of the fire and wraps herself into a blanket. It’s getting darker and colder.

“Tomorrow is the big day,” Claude says. “All we have to do is to prepare properly. And we’ll finally go find what you’re looking for.” He curls up like a child, his nose hidden under the blanket. His eyes are heavy with sleep.

“Let’s take turns,” he finally says. “I’ll sleep first. Just wake me up.”

Byleth looks at him in silence as sleep claims him. If he wanted her dead, he would have killed her right there. Maybe it’s what he wanted to prove her.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The sun is shining hard when Byleth awakes. It’s alarming because they were supposed to leave early at dawn. Under different circumstances, she would assume that Claude has failed to wake her up—she has no faith in his sleep schedule. But there are worse, more pressing matters at hand.

She is entirely sprawled on the floor, like a disarticulated puppet. And her body … something is wrong with her body. She’s hot and she has trouble breathing. The more she tries to inhale air, the more she realises how quickly her capacity to breathe is deteriorating. As she desperately chases for oxygen, her eyes wander, looking for Claude. But he’s nowhere to be seen, and neither is Delhia.

She instantly panics, her delirious, oxygen-deprived mind looking for an answer. The only one she finds is devastating.

 _He poisoned me and left me there to die_.

She has no idea how he proceeded. Maybe he made her inhale something during her sleep, or he simply poisoned the food when he was immune all along.

 _I hate him_ , she screams in her head, tearing apart her shirt as if it could help her to breathe properly. She knows she’s the only one to blame. She should have followed her guts feeling, she shouldn’t have let him accompany her. Her grudge had no place in this mission. If she is dying, it’s because of her own stupidity. And Edelgard will be the one to pay the price.

She’s twisting her body now, kicking for air, crawling towards the fireplace that is somehow still ablaze, looking for water, something that could help her. A pot sits on the ambers, full of a boiling liquid. She wants to find it strange, but none of this makes sense anymore as the lack of oxygen starts to blur her vision. She coughs and she can taste iron in her mouth.

She could swear she’s turning blind when the light suddenly disappears, until she understands it’s something, someone, occulting the sun. A guttural growl answers her question. Delhia.

In a hurry, Claude jumps off the wyvern and throws some herbs into the boiling water. He glances at Byleth and flinches when he sees that her eyes are glazed.

“Shit…!”

He opens his luggage and instantly regrets he never took the time to arrange it properly. He starts tossing things away, books, vials, clothes, until he finds a pestle and a mortar. He pulls roots and herbs out of his pockets, spits in the mortar, and starts crushing the mix with hast while keeping one eye on the fire, another on Byleth. Delhia, standing near her, is sniffling her hair and whining softly.

Byleth tries to look at Claude to figure out what he is doing, but he’s really no more than a blurry silhouette at this point. She can barely breathe anymore, but she finds just enough energy to let a gasp cross her lips.

“You poisoned me. You poisoned me,” she whines.

“Stay still,” Claude answers.

He suddenly gets up and spills the hot liquid into a mug. He crouches in front of Byleth and grabs her cheeks to look at her in the eyes. Her pupils are dilated. It’s not good.

He speaks slowly so that she can understand.

“Byleth. Listen to me. You will be fine, but you need to do as I say. Don’t move.”

He doesn’t wait for her approval and reaches for her neck with his knife. He grates the skin there and it hurts like hell, but it makes little difference to Byleth when her whole body is already on fire. He then takes something with his fingers and presses them under the skin, right into the cut. Her body jerks to the sensation but Claude takes her head into his hands so she won’t slam it on the ground. 

When she finally stops convulsing, he parts her lips with his fingers and he presses his mouth against hers. She feels some sort of bitter, hot liquid going down her throat. Claude separates from her quickly, and she coughs and coughs again, then vomits violently. She wants to protest, but she has no strength left anymore when Claude moves behind her, sits down and pulls her body between his legs, her back resting against his chest. 

“We’re almost done. Now try to relax and listen to my respiration,” he whispers in her ear as his arms circle her body just below the chest, not enough to hinder her breathing, just to keep her in place. To show her how to do it, he takes a long inspiration, and exhales slowly.

“Just like that, see? Easy. Your turn, now.”

Pressed against him, she can feel his movements. Despite the pain, she tries to focus.

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale.

After a first few difficult rounds interrupted by coughing spasms, her muscles start to relax and breathing becomes gradually easier. When she has finally calmed down enough to do so, she speaks.

“You poisoned me.” Her voice is coarse and her throat hurts.

Claude lets out a deep sigh in her neck, and she could almost imagine the face he’s making. She calls it the “face of disappointment”.

“Technically, I did. But it wasn’t on purpose.”

“What?”

He wiggles his foot to point at an object on the ground.

“Your dagger,” he says. “I can’t believe you forgot you had a poisoned blade. You are really lucky I know about these things, because this poison was a nasty one.”

Byleth blanks out for a second.

 _Hubert, you creep_ , she thinks. How hard was it to simply tell her the blade he gave her was enchanted? Though she has to admit, this is really like him, after all. Him and his dramatic antics…

Now that she feels slightly better and less confused, she’s becoming painfully aware of the position Claude put them in. She still sits between his legs, and he still holds her tight. There is something unsettling about this whole situation.

“Is this really necessary?” she asks, pointing at his arms still encircling her torso.

“Since you won’t stop moving; yes, it is.” He almost sounds like an adult scolding a child. “As long as you have a fever, there is a chance you will convulse. I’d rather watch over you until I know everything is fine…” He pauses. “Though I suppose I don’t _have_ to embrace you.”

She sees no objection to that. She lets Claude guide her as he readjusts their position to leave her head on his lap. He stretches an arm to reach for a blanket that he puts on her.

The air is warm, almost too hot, but Byleth’s body is still shivering. Soothed by the crackling fire and on the verge of losing consciousness again, she closes her eyes. She feels dizzy, probably from the poison and the medecine Claude gave her. She is terribly tired.

“Why did you help me?” she asks him after a while, a murmur against the fabric on his pants.

“We’re in this together, aren’t we?” he whispers back.

“So you really don’t hate me…?” She hears her voice break a little and she’s too tired to feel ashamed about it. Visions of blood, tears and fire blur into her mind.

Claude doesn’t answer right away, taking his time to choose the proper words.

“Not anymore,” he says.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

When Byleth awakes again, this time the sun is already low on the horizon and she’s now fully rested on the ground, head on clothes arranged as a pillow and enveloped in a blanket.

Claude sits next to the fire, bare-chested and oblivious to her. He’s shaving in front of a small mirror. Byleth grimaces when she figures he’s doing it with a pocketknife. His hair is damp and from the look of it, he tidied up their campsite. He’s preparing for their departure. They already lost a full day.

So many things happened so quickly. If Byleth wasn’t already well aware she doesn’t actually know Claude, this episode will serve as a solid reminder. In the past, they were colleagues at best, exchanged a few words and meals from time to time. After Edelgard declared war on the Church, the first and last time she ever saw him again was on that fateful day in Derdriu. Truth to be told, as he begged for his life on his knees, covered with blood and sweat, he still looked dignified.

Claude surely is more than what he lets on. Back then, on his white wyvern, his posture and charisma betrayed the truth; that he and her would never be the same. She was made of iron, and him of gold.

 _Perhaps he is the heir of a noble family back in Almyra_ , she thinks, eyes fixated on him as he cleans his knife in a small bowl. Or perhaps he is the son of a great general. Maybe Nader the Undefeated, whom she personally killed on the Almyran border the month following the capture of Derdriu, was one of his relatives. Behind his dishevelled hair and his dark eyes, it’s clear that Claude still has that strange beauty that used to captivate everyone around him. But of the dignity she saw into him back in Derdriu, there is nothing left anymore.

Claude sits there, lazily arranging his hair in a bun and when he turns around to find something in his bag, Byleth looks at his torso and refrains a gasp.

He is covered in numerous scars, red and deep as if they were from the last month. She remembers the chaos of the battle, her blade piercing his flesh, and she wonders _which one is mine?_

No one but him ever survived an encounter with the Sword of the Creator. If she had to guess, then it’s probably the one spreading over his whole chest and that goes from his left shoulder to his right hip, accompanied by a second one, smaller and parallel to it, lower on his body. She still remembers the gruesome scream that escaped his lips when she struck him down. The sound was almost inhuman, as if it couldn’t belong to such a pretty face.

_Yes. I did this to you._

Some others are probably the souvenir of many arrows—Bernadetta’s maybe—and they mark his skin like a constellation. One on his right shoulder, one near his heart, another above his liver… Many she cannot count. And the scar that is spreading on his left arm—and Claude quickly dresses up now that he noticed she’s awoken—is a bit strange. It snakes from his shoulder to his hand, scattering everywhere in a complex pattern as if he had been struck by lightning. _Just an accident_ , he said.

She saw her fair share of disfigured bodies throughout her life, in taverns, in war camps and in hospitals, but Claude’s makes her question how he is even still alive. It reminds her of Edelgard’s own terrible scars. She showed them to Byleth back at the Academy, when they were both still so young, and she never forgot the disgust she felt then. Not because they were ugly, no, but because they betrayed the cruelty and the pain her dear friend had been through. Of course, Byleth was not around back when Edelgard got locked down and tortured below the Imperial palace. It’s not like she could have made anything to save her. But that night, in the secret of her bedroom, when she brushed over Edelgard’s scars with the tip of her fingers and the young woman started to weep, a part of herself still felt terribly guilty thinking about the weight of the suffering inflicted to this innocent soul.

She covers her mouth with her hands to silent a cry and turns around to hide from Claude. It’s clear, now.

_Why did you spare him on that day?_

The feeling she mistook for hatred is not that at all. She never hated Claude.

She curls up and shuts her eyes tight.

_Oh, Sothis, what did I do…?_

_He was innocent._

_I always knew it, and I still broke him._

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Claude takes the lead for the last section of the trip. He’s the only one with enough strength to guide them properly and to order Delhia around. They’ve been flying for a few hours and on the horizon, he can now see the sea, blinding as it reflects the sun. On the coast are the red roofs of Erinys, the port where they decided they would establish their last settlement before they plunge underground.

Byleth trembles behind him. She is still weakened by the poison, both in body and in mind, although it will only be the matter of a few days before she is back to her usual self. Just enough time to finalise their preparations. Ever since she woke up, she’s been avoiding his gaze. Maybe they have other things to sort out before they leave for good, he wouldn’t want to be alone down there with someone who won’t speak to him. This is why he always preferred to operate alone. People always make things too complicated.

It would have been easier to just hate her. Claude thought about it as he went through her things on the first day and he found a dagger at the bottom of her bag.

Slicing her throat, stabbing her in the back or poisoning her tea… All of this would have been easy to do.

He remembered then what Layla told him back in Almyra, in another life.

“I know you don’t want to send an assassin after her, but you could just kidnap her. Bring her to the palace and have her face your judgement. You have the power to do it, now. It would help you in many ways. Take your revenge, Khalid.”

He had nodded and kissed her, because it was easier than trying to explain why her plan would not solve any of his issues.

He still took the dagger from Byleth’s bag and hid it inside his puffy clothes. For what purpose, he didn’t know. Maybe it was just a test. Byleth always kept an eye on her other weapons—the knife that never left her and a short sword—and if she noticed the disappearance of this one, then she didn’t show it. He expected much more of her, but perhaps it was true that peace made the mind weaker. If anything, he envied her for that.

He felt a rush of adrenaline when he drew the blade and her life was at his mercy. For just this moment, he could pretend he had the upper hand and it felt as if he was the king of the world. He could have killed her right there, but all her eyes reflected back at him were his own shortcomings, and the king fell off his throne as quickly as he had sat upon it.

Everything would have been easier if he just hated her, but the truth was that Claude never had a mean bone in his body, and if he had been often mocked and belittled for that, it was just the sort of person he was.

“Hold tight! We’re arriving,” he shouts so that the wind won’t cover his voice.

He feels the arms of Byleth tightening around his waist in response and her forehead rested against his back. He whistles and Delhia starts her descent towards the city.

 _Soon_ , he thinks to himself as they pierce through the clouds. He can see the patterns created in the sand by the ruins down below, a few kilometres away from the city. _Be patient. Soon, everything will be alright_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Wait, it's all self-indulgent bs?"  
> "Always has been."
> 
> \--
> 
> My PC crashed when I was almost done editing this chapter, so sorry in advance if you still see obvious typos...
> 
> Thank you to everyone still reading and commenting.  
> This is the midpoint! (looking at my drafts, probably not in wordcount, though...)
> 
> I honestly don't think I would be able to write so much in so little time without your kind words. A good chunk of this fic is already written down, but it's still evolving for the best (hopefully) thanks to your comments that sometimes inspire me, and always cheer me up :) 
> 
> So thank you again, and I'll see you in the next one that should be less angtsy, for once (and probably not in a week this time around haha)


	6. The Last Day on Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: mentions of sexual assault in this one

They called him Dragonfly. The legend had it that his steps were so light, he could walk on water. He saw himself as a specialised mercenary but the people who feared him only ever used the term _assassin_ to describe the sort of services he used to provide. He was an ace in strangulation and shapeshifting and while no one could prove it, it was said many important figures died to his crafty hands. He retired from this dreadful life, eventually, and found relative peace somewhere in Albinea with his kin.

The request he got on that day was one he would have refused had it been formulated by anyone but the woman who stood before him. She wasn’t like the other nobles who’d usually ask for his services, she was too vulnerable and naïve for that and she told him more about herself than safety would recommend. Territories, honour, titles, family… She had lost everything to a war in a faraway land. She had nothing else to lose, nothing else to wait for. She just wanted revenge and she was ready to pay the price, whatever it would be, to put an end to the source of her suffering.

When the woman described the target, Dragonfly knew right away that it would not be an easy job and that no price would make it worth the risk. Yet, all it really took to convince him was the restless anger burning inside her golden eyes. Years and years later, when he’d recount this story to his family, he wouldn’t be able to explain why what he saw there struck him the way it did.

Finding the target took a long time. He was out of the business for more than a decade and he had lost most of this contacts and network. All he could really count on was himself. Still, he managed to finally locate her, somewhere at the other end of the known world, in a small fishing town.

When he first sees her from a distance, he recognises her instantly. Strong legs and arms, generous curves. Navy blue hair and cold eyes to match. She fits the description to a T.

He manages to gather some information, but there isn’t much to learn in the first place. She arrived a few days earlier. She doesn’t talk much. She’s looking for something. With his magic, Dragonfly twists his appearance every so often so he doesn’t raise unwanted attention, but the people of Erinys are elusive, as if they were carefully protecting her—or maybe just themselves.

Tonight, he takes the features of an Almyran man. It seems like a logical choice: an Almyran boat arrived to town earlier that day. It’s the ideal compromise: he will stand out, but not too much, and his language skills are so good no one would ever be able to tell the difference, especially not a Fódlan woman.

So, Dragonfly prepares himself mentally before he pushes the door of the tavern. He wears a bracelet around his left wrist and, carefully rolled inside it, there is a wire—his weapon of choice. It’s not the quickest method, but it’s his favourite. Strangulation is discreet, clean and it’s really easy to get rid of the evidence afterwards if needed.

The woman, he can tell by the noises coming out the building, is out to get wasted tonight. He will observe her and do his job when she is done and she tries to come home dizzy and a bit lost. He suspects it’s the only way he’d stand a chance against her. He already surveyed the town and he eliminated every possibility to settle on the one path he is sure she will take to go home: a narrow street that leads to the shore. If everything goes as planned, she will never make it there.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Claude saw Byleth train alone today, and it was nothing like the awkward, guarded performance she showed him during the past weeks. Something definitely happened, he thought, for she was even more impressive than in his memories. As much as the sudden change in her attitude intrigued him, he didn’t dare to disturb her. Training is all she’s been doing ever since she recovered from the poison episode from a few days ago.

They spoke little ever since, even less than they used to, and only agreed on a list of tasks to do before they depart for good. Claude finally decided to hand her some of his most comprehensible books so that she could have a better understanding of what to expect during the expedition. He never saw her read them, but he assumes she did. He also told her where she could find his old antiquarian friend, Nahkt, and while she never spoke about it, Claude wonders if perhaps it explains her attitude. If she talked with him, then they are about to have a serious conversation in the following hours.

He went his own way to look for several items he knows will be essential in their quest. Tinder, elixirs, torches, oil and vulneraries… He’s not sure Byleth knows how to heal injuries with magic. Even if she does, there’s little chance it would even work outside of Fódlan anyway. His own magic, that he’s been learning for the past year with the help of his neighbours in Senerio, is of the offensive type. He familiarised himself with specific, powerful spells, but the magic practised in Morfis takes a massive toll on your body. He’s unsure for how long exactly he’ll be able to use it, nor if it will be reliable. 

This old city that the locals call Mu is a maze that runs below the surface of the earth to unknown distances. Some say the galleries extend far away under the entire peninsula, and that they go so deep under the surface the bottom floors are surrounded by rivers of fire. It’s hard to separate the truth from the legends, all Claude knows for sure is that his goal is probably way under the most secured floors and far away from the sun, fresh air and human contact.

He planned their itinerary for what must be the first four days of walk but there is no guarantee the terrain won’t have changed in the meantime, nor that his data was correct in the first place. After that, it’s the unknown: way too many monsters to survey the terrain properly and ensure your survival at the same time. On top of it, he heard there was an earthquake recently that probably reshaped the corridors.

He told all of that to Byleth, but she didn’t seem to mind. He’s starting to suspect that much like him, there’s more than just one thing she’s looking for down there. He considered many companions for this expedition in the past but retrospectively, he realises it would really take someone as unhinged and bizarre as Byleth to accompany him.

At the thought of what’s to come, something creeps under his skin, a mix of fear and anticipation, a rush of adrenaline similar to the one he felt every single time he was about to do something stupid and dangerous—that is to say, more often than safety would recommend. 

Claude knocks on the door of a boutique and makes his way in.

Nahkt sits behind a bar, piles of books surrounding him. He is a man in his sixties but still in relatively good shape. His pair of glasses is similar to Claude’s, but for the rest he present himself in typical Morfis fashion, up to his shaved head.

When the bells ring to inform him someone entered the shop, he raises his eyes from his book and freezes on the spot when he notices the familiar face standing in front of him.

“Orion,” he says with a dry voice. He closes his book.

“Well, well, you couldn’t look less enthusiastic if you tried,” Claude answer with a smile. “What with the dark eyes, my friend?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t strike me as the sort of person who likes surprises.”

“Depends on whether we’re talking about receiving them or making them…”

He looks for a chair and drags it to the bar to sit.

“So, what brings you here?” Nahkt pauses. “Unannounced.” He shakes his head before Claude can open his mouth to answer. “No, actually, you don’t need to tell me. You are pushing your luck, my boy.”

Claude smiles. “And you aren’t old enough to act as my father.”

“So, I am right…”

“Don’t worry, things will be different this time around.” He pauses, as if he’s expecting Nahkt to add something. He doesn’t.

“You’ve met her already, haven’t you? My companion.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“So,” Claude says with a hint of surprise in the voice, “she didn’t come here…”

Nahkt sighs. “Who is ‘she’? Your lover?”

“Wow, you are quick to jump to conclusions!”

“No one would be crazy enough to follow you if not for love, and I don’t want to assume that you are a liar…”

Claude laughs. “Well, I’m sorry to pain you, but you are wrong. She is here out of her free will and I highly doubt she has any intention of bedding me. Also, she’s a fantastic fighter.”

“You will need as much… That, and a goddamn miracle.”

“It’s the best shot we’ll ever have.”

“You said that the last time and look at how it ended. I must say I’m surprised you still have two arms.”

Claude shrugs. “It will be different this time around. She is… She is special.” He bends over the bar to speak closer to his face. “She’s not really human,” he says in whisper, as if he was divulging a secret.

“You wonder why I treat you like a kid…” Nahkt answers, “it’s because you still believe in fairy tales.”

“So, even if I asked, you won’t come with us?”

“Orion… You do realise you aren’t making it out alive this time?”

Claude doesn’t answer, a sly smile painted on his lips.

“Or not in one piece anyway…” Nahkt continues.

Claude sighs. “It’s all or nothing,” he finally says. “It doesn’t matter if I lose an arm or a leg in the process, if gargoyles pierce my eardrums and dragons burn my skin. As long as I succeed … it won’t matter.”

“It’s true… As long as you succeed,” Nahkt answer with a dry voice. His expression is that of a concerned man.

“Are you worried about me?” Claude asks. “It’s not like you.”

“I’m always worried about you. Always have been. From the very first day I met you in that shithole of yours in Senerio. You are just too stubborn to realise it… No, I’d say you are fully aware of it, but you prefer to ignore it.”

Claude looks at the man, his friend, and a gush of genuine love runs through his body. Sometimes, he reminds him of Nader.

“Hey, I’ll be fine,” he answers with the softest voice he can find.

“You won’t.” Nahkt sighs once again and looks at him right in the eyes. “I don’t know what exactly it is you are running from but … you are bright, and you are still young. You could stay here with me, become my apprentice. It wouldn’t be the life you seem to be dreaming of, but it’s an honest life. You might even find happiness.”

“You are getting sentimental, now,” Claude murmurs.

“And you are throwing your life away chasing after an illusion.”

“That’s the thing, see… I don’t think I really have a choice at this point,” Claude says bitterly.

“And what about that lady? Does she?”

“Don’t paint her as a victim.” He shakes his head. “If you’d seen her eyes, Nahkt, you’d understand…”

“Her eyes?”

“She is like me.”

“So, you do share a bond, after all.”

“I guess you could call it like that.”

Nahkt sights deeply.

“When are you leaving?” he asks as if admitting defeat. “I’ll do you whatever I can to improve your survival rate.”

“If not tomorrow, the day after. Actually, I came here to ask you to take care of my wyvern.”

“Do me a small favour, then. Since it is your last day in this miserable life, I think you should bid farewell properly.”

“Oh? And what should I do?”

“Easy, it’s the same everywhere: you laugh, you drink, and you fuck.”

Claude lets out a chuckle.

“See? We’re already set on number one.” Nahkt taps his shoulder lightly. “And I’ll gladly accompany you on number two.” His right-hand dips below the bar to grasp a bottle of spirit. It’s part of his personal supplies. “As for number three… Well, I’ll leave it to your discretion and I want nothing to do with it, my boy.”

They stay together for several hours, although they really speak more than they actually drink. Nahkt tries to sweet-talk Claude out of it again but eventually, he gives up and showers him with advices instead. When Claude finally leaves the shop, the old man gives him one last strong embrace before they separate.

It’s already dark now, and the smell of food escaping from the open windows is carried through the streets of the city. Claude’s stomach gurgles in response. Nahkt forgot about this one on his list: “eat until you lose consciousness”. He guesses that’s the difference between someone raised in Almyra and the rest of the world. Granted, it’s not like they really filled number two either—in the end he barely had two drinks.

Claude doesn’t blame Nahkt and his preachy tone. He likes him; he really does. His proposition was tempting, but it came way too late. _Maybe, in another life_ , he thinks. Still, he doesn’t let the gloom gets to his head, and he’s unusually light-hearted as he makes his way through the streets looking for a place to dine.

He’s not one to leave anything to luck and this plan was not supposed to be any different, but in this equation, Byleth is the biggest wild card he could possibly imagine. Still, he also bet on her in the past and it paid off, so after she left him alone in his patio in Senerio, Claude thought long and hard about the new possibilities that her presence in Morfis just opened for him. Like in any gamble, the biggest the risks, the highest the rewards, and this was one he figured he was ready to take.

One thing that made him hesitate was that Byleth seemingly wasn’t travelling with the Sword of the Creator. Had their relationship been less tense, he would have joked about how she broke it on Rhea’s scales. He would have felt safer had the sword been on her side, but after a good night of sleep, he concluded that the weapon really wasn’t what made her special in the first place. Her blood was, and it is all he will need. That, and, of course, her battle prowess.

The itinerary they took to reach Erinys was not the fastest one, nor the easiest way, but it was simple to convince Byleth to take it when she was so clueless about the place. Between the moment they met and tonight, over fifteen days have passed. Claude spent every single one of them trying to decipher her. Their trip was really no more than a pretext to study her, and it taught him what he wanted to know. That she’s still a fierce fighter and sharper in mind that she ever was, that she doesn’t care about getting dirtied and beaten, that she is not afraid to die, that she is carried by an objective unknown but important enough she will go to great lengths to fulfil it. And that she doesn’t trust him at all. Or at least, she didn’t. 

Giving her the name of Nahkt was his final test, perhaps, but funnily enough not one that was planned originally. Her animosity was not an issue per se, Claude had worked with more reluctant people in the past. It was, actually, his speciality, to make them go his way whether they wanted it or not. They often didn’t even realise it. But when Byleth accused him of murdering innocent people at the Locket, a pride he thought long extinguished grew anew inside of him. He could live with the usual misconceptions about him and he had learnt to ignore people calling him a coward, a traitor, a liar. But her suspicions and her holier-than-thou attitude made his blood boil in an unexpected way. He just couldn’t accept that someone—that _she—_ could believe he’d do something so wicked.

But in the end, it seems that Byleth didn’t visit Nahkt, which means that she didn’t feel the need to check his alibi. The thought makes him smile a little. Despite it all, she trusted his words.

Byleth was such a mystery to him that back when they were both at Garreg Mach Monastery, he could only draw two conclusions: she was either a spy of the Church, or an innocent pawn. The more he learnt to know her, the more confident he became in his judgement. She wasn’t wicked. She had a kind heart. It’s as much as a benefit as it is a glaring weakness. He would know, he is the same.

On the night of the yearly ball, he invited her to dance with him and when she sneaked out earlier than anyone else, Claude knew she’d be naive enough to trust the old tales, brave the interdictions and climb the Goddess Tower. Hidden by the shadows cast by the cathedral, he saw her cross the small bridge and force her way inside the building through the creaked door. He would have laughed at her naivety then, if only he could justify his own presence there by anything less stupid than the fact that he, too, had decided to believe into something bigger than them. He stayed there in silence, watching at the light cast by her torch through the small windows of the tower. He hesitated to join her inside, but much like he had fought the urge to sweep her away from the party earlier on, he repressed the thought. She wasn’t on his side. She never would be.

When Byleth betrayed the Church, it confirmed what he had suspected about her feelings for Edelgard. When he saw her commanding the Imperial troops, he realised he always knew about her resolve. When she spared his life—and no one in the Alliance nor in Almyra ever understood this particular bet of his—he wasn’t surprised either. Despite it all, Byleth could see right through his mask. Much like he had been able to see her kindness, she understood the truth of his heart.

There is something infuriating about it, Claude keeps on thinking as he walks through the streets, that he knows her better than the people who were his friends, that it was easier to understand she would spare him rather than expecting Hilda to spill her blood for him.

He reaches a tavern and enters. He feels a bit high from the drinks he had earlier on, and so he decides to sit at the bar and orders a plate of grilled fish. It’s not a feast, but it will do. The place is full of life and of fishermen laughing and singing.

Then, after a few minutes, Byleth enters as well. A big man is following her. She points at an empty table and the guy obeys and sits there.

 _What is she doing?_ Claude wonders. _Has she hired this man? Or is he just her type?_

Maybe she, too, wants to pay her farewells to that world properly.

He feigns ignorance when Byleth reaches the bar and orders the strongest liquor they have in store.

“What’s the plan?” he hears himself ask. “Get the guy drunk and have him forfeit all his possessions to you when he’s butt-naked? Friendly reminder we share the same place tonight.”

It was meant to be a joke, but he’s not sure Byleth takes it as one. She looks at him with round eyes and a bright blush appears on her cheeks.

“It’s just a transaction,” she quickly hisses back, eyes now fixated on the floor to escape his mocking gaze. “Stay out of this.”

Claude hides his smile behind a cup as he watches her return to the table with her hands full of bottles and glasses. The tip of her ears is still red.

 _She’s as easy to fluster as Edelgard_ , he thinks. _And… I really shouldn’t drink like that._

He eats slowly, watching her like all the other men in the room are. From time to time, she eyes at him discreetly and he smiles back at her. He wonders if she realises how dangerous their expedition will be. If she suspects he’s about to make it more dangerous still. He’d almost feel guilty about it, but her figure and the music remind him of more peaceful times and sweep him away from his sarcasm.

His eyes wander across the room and end up on an Almyran man, sited alone around a table. He’s looking at Byleth with such intensity Claude would find it disgusting if the image of her breaking his fingers in retaliation wasn’t imposing itself instead. The man isn’t the only one looking at her like she’s a roasted beef and them starving animals. If he had less self-control and dignity, he’d probably be one of them. It’s hard to deny she looks stunning tonight, her hair arranged in a high ponytail and her flushed body compressed in her tight clothes.

He takes another sardine to cool his mind and his eyes wander to the lonely Almyran man again as Byleth serves herself another drink.

He flinches. Something is strange about the man. Uncanny, like his face is floating above his skeleton. It’s hard to explain and had he not read so many obscure books in the past, Claude would have assumed it was just the booze going to his head.

 _A shapeshifter_.

It’s the first time he sees one in person, but he knows it’s not good news. The man is more than a horny traveller; no one goes to these lengths just to hide their identity and secure a night with a girl. Thoughts ramble in Claude’s brain. The man is studying Byleth. He probably already knows who she’s travelling with.

_Is he coming for her? Or for me?_

There’s a hint of excitement about the idea. Morfis had proved to be the best choice possible to conceal his identity. He didn’t stick out, and people were too suspicious to sell him out to strangers. Ever since he arrived there five years ago, no one managed to find him and to send an assassin after him. This one, though, is obviously on another level than those his brothers and Count Gloucester used to hire. He is a pro. 

Claude considers the situation. He has to do something, and if not later, it has to be right now. It’s a good thing he’s in such a good mood tonight; he’s up for some fun. He takes his plate and makes his way to the table, ready to make his best impression.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The target is, indeed, hard to miss, with a big bottle half her size right in front of her. On the other side, there is a huge man. He looks visibly tired and a bit greasy. They paint a silly picture together, a frighteningly big, sweaty man and a small, collected pale woman. It’s especially funny because it seems she’s holding her liquor way better than him. They are playing a game, it seems, drinking in turns, glass after glass. He hopes she has no plan to bring the man home when she’s done for it would make his job harder. A few bystanders stand in a circle around their table and cheer them on.

He’s trying to evaluate her height and her equipment when a plate full of grilled sardines is slammed on his table and startles him.

“May peace be upon you, Brother.”

It’s a young man. His eyes are sweet and his smile sweeter.

“May peace be upon you,” he answers in a perfect Almyran as he watches the man take a sit without asking for permission.

It’s alright. This type of behaviour is to be expected from Almyran people, and even more among travellers. Plus, it makes for the perfect cover-up.

“You are new around here, aren’t you?” the man asks. “Your face isn’t familiar to me.”

“I’m only passing by,” Dragonfly answers. He tries to pry less than before, but it’s not like he can stop to watch his target altogether. Obviously, his new friend picks it up.

“Fódlan women…” the man says with a hint of disgust in the voice, turning his head so he can also watch her. “Awful personalities… But I can’t say I blame you.” He turns around again and flashes Dragonfly a carnivorous smile. “This one’s got quite the obscene body.”

His hands trace two big curves into the air to mimic her figure. At the other table, the woman just emptied another glass. The man in front of her is sweating more and more.

“Obscene body…” Dragonfly repeats to play along. Of course, the man mistook his insistent gaze for lust. They are all looking at her that way, no one would ever suspect any other intent. So, Dragonfly looks at her more intensely as he grabs a sardine and eats it. She’s obviously winning whatever game she’s playing. He feels the excitement building up in his body as the crowd cheers on her more and more and it’s obvious the climax is nearing.

“If you wanna some help,” the Almyran man says, looking at him with some sort of amusement and munching some fish as well, “I know where she lives.” The last words are pronounced with a low voice, one full of mischief and bad intentions.

“Do you?”

Dragonfly already has that intel, of course, but maybe he can learn more… And he has to play along if he wants to keep a low profile.

The man bends over the table to whisper. “She rents a place on the harbour. They say she’s good with a sword, but drunk as she’ll be, all you gotta do is follow her, sneak into her place and … you know…”

He falls back into his chair again and makes an obscene gesture with his hands, a devious smile painted on his lips.

“But you gotta be careful,” he adds, his voice lower still, “I heard there’s a man staying with her.”

Now, this is new.

“Is there?”

“Yeah. Bitch’s living with an Almyran,” the man continues. “Can you believe it?” He makes a grimace and then laughs loud enough some bystanders turn around to watch them. The woman also does. _Of course_ , Dragonfly thinks, _Fódlanese and Almyran are sworn enemies_.

He takes an air of disgust to play the part.

“But maybe it means you’ll be her type after all,” the man says, picking another sardine from the plate, “and she’ll open these pretty tights of hers without too much resistance.”

He turns again to watch her, chewing loudly on his food.

The drinking game seems to be over now. The woman stands up and leaves a silver coin on the table. Her opponent, the sweaty man, reluctantly looks for something behind him, and gets out a long object enveloped in fabric. She nods and takes it.

“Was it a bet…?” Dragonfly asks mostly to himself.

“Looks so,” the Almyran man says. “But now you’d better hurry if you wanna catch her.”

“… You are right.”

He waits for her to leave the place and stands up.

“Thank you for the meal…” He pauses. “And for the piece of information,” he finally adds, even if the implication disgusts him greatly.

“I have another trick for you before you leave…” the man says, stretching his arms into the air. “If you go through the kitchen, you’ll find a backdoor. If you go through there, you’ll be able to cut her path down below in a narrow street. This way you won’t have to deal with her buddy… Nor to reach her place. No one will hear her scream there.”

Dragonfly nods and leaves swiftly in direction of the bar.

_What was wrong with that man…?_ he asks himself as he runs without a sound in the narrow streets to catch up on his target. Though, he guesses it’s to be expected from horny, lonely travellers. Many men in that tavern looked like they’d be more than willing to eat her alive when given the chance.

The most important thing right now is that as disgusting as the man was, he was right. Dragonfly stops at an intersection and he sees her shadow approaching from the other street. When she passes in front of him without noticing him, hidden as he is in the shadows, her face is as stoic as ever. Thanks to the alcohol, her steps aren’t as assured as they could be.

He observed her meticulously in the tavern. Her only weapon is the small dagger on her waist. He knows she isn’t to be underestimated, but it will be easy to sneak behind her and strangle her.

When she’s a metre or two ahead of him and enters another, smaller street, he jumps swiftly behind her. True to his reputation, he doesn’t make a sound as he follows her and opens his bracelet to take out the wire. He deploys it and jumps at her.

He was sure he had gone unnoticed—in his long years in the profession no one ever heard him coming—and yet she has enough time to slip her left hand between the wire and her throat.

 _It won’t save you_ , he thinks, pulling on the wire to tighten his grip. There’s blood coming from her entrapped left hand that is running down her wrist. Years and years of practice and polishing his methods are speaking: compared to a rope, a wire offers you less grip to pull on, but if you have enough strength to do it, it’s a much deadlier instrument. If the victim struggles too much, it will not just strangle them; it will cut their throat.

Dragonfly, however, isn’t the young, robust man he used to be, and his target is not of the typical kind either. She doesn’t panic; she adapts. And so, despite the stress and despite the pain, she finds the strength to crouch quickly, sending him off balance. The wire slips from his hand ever so slightly, and she takes the opportunity to throw her right elbow into his guts.

Dragonfly dodges, but by doing so he releases the wire. He backs up and she turns around to face him. Her eyes are cold and deadly and it’s like she couldn’t bother less about the blood gushing from her left hand. They observe each other for what feels like an eternity. His face—and he notices now that his magic is gone—is also emotionless, but he has noticed something that would otherwise warrant a victorious smile: dizzy and lost as she is, she hasn’t figured out yet that he managed to send flying her only weapon; her dagger. And if he favours treacherous, silent methods, he’s not stupid enough to go on a mission without a backup plan. He hides a blade inside his boot.

He strikes like a snake, rushing to her left flank as he draws his weapon in one swift motion.

_So much for the Ashen Demon…!_

But then his legs give way below him. His vision becomes blurry and something seems to burn within him. He drops his weapon. He coughs and sees blood on the floor.

He was a fool. He would have never made that mistake in the past.

He understands now what was disturbing about the Almyran man. It wasn’t just the attitude; it was his eyes. They were green. No one born Almyran looks like that. And now, his face becomes familiar. It belongs to someone he always refused to take care of despite how high the bounty was.

His loses his vision entirely when he feels a sharp, sickening pain in his left knee. His last thought before he passes out is the somewhat comforting knowledge that the poisons of Khalid of Almyra are not known to be lethal.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

“Did you kill him?” Claude asks.

“I just broke his kneecap, “ Byleth says with her usual dull voice. “He shouldn’t be able to walk properly for tonight … if not ever.”

Claude leaves the alcove that dissimulated him and grimaces. He knows what the alternative was. Better ending up with a bad leg than straight-up dead.

“What about the thing you gave him to eat?” Byleth asks him. “I saw you slip something into your food… I thought it was seasonings at first.”

“Nothing too bad,” Claude says. “I’m surprised it worked on him. Most pro would be immune.”

“Are you?”

Claude shrugs. “Maybe.

“What about you? Are you hurt? You’re bleeding.”

“Mmh, not really,” Byleth says. “I just sliced my fingers a little on his thread… Oh, and I twisted an ankle.”

“I missed that last part…”

Byleth shakes her head and blushes a little.

“No, not against that guy. I slipped on the paving earlier on.”

Claude represses a laugh.

“So, you _are_ drunk after all!”

“I’m not drunk!” she complains. “Just a bit dizzy!”

“Where I come from, ‘dizzy’ is code for ‘drunk’.”

“Cut it out! You also reek of booze!”

“I had a drink or two with a friend.”

“That antiquarian you told me about the other day?”

“Yes…”

_So, she didn’t forget._

And she noticed the assassin as well, albeit she wasn’t able to tell he had changed his appearance. Her raw instinct isn’t to be underestimated.

Claude presents his back to her and taps on his shoulder.

“Come on now, hop on. Time to go home.”

Byleth looks at him with round eyes.

“On your back?”

“Don’t make me ask twice. I don’t want to have you walk on that ankle.”

Byleth carefully props herself on his shoulders and crooks her legs around his waist. Claude bends a little under her weight, then he grasps her thighs near her ass—he tries not to think about it too much. His grip is a bit lighter on the left side, but Byleth makes up for it by locking her ankles together.

“Alright, all set,” Claude says.

He struggles at first, but he quickly finds his balance and resumes his walk, Byleth firmly attached to his back.

Thanks to the sea, the air is still warm here, at night. Claude appreciates the moment probably more than he should. He never carried anyone like that, not his sister, not Hilda, not even Layla. There is something tender about the gesture, a bit intimate and, he must admit, childish. But who cares? The night is still beautiful and it will be their last one under an open sky in very long time.

Byleth bends too much backwards and he complains when he almost loses his balance, so she presses her body against him instead and rests her head in the crook of his neck. She is warm and there is something familiar about her smell, a feeling that pinches his heart a little.

“Do you think we should have killed that guy?” she asks, breaking the silence when they reach the little house they are renting.

“It was no use,” Claude answers. “He’ll probably forget about living the assassin life after that and go straight back home. I’d rather not spill blood needlessly.”

“You are kind,” Byleth hums against his skin. “About him. And about carrying me.”

“Kindness has nothing to do with this,” Claude answers.

“It does…”

“How bad do you think things would get if you…” He sighs, visibly too tired to argue. “Eh. You know what? Whatever you say…”

He puts the key inside the locket and he pushes the door, but it resists. He curses a little and uses his knee instead. The rusted hinges squeak as they give way and the door opens.

The moonlight is so bright, Claude can see distinctly the interior of the house without putting any light on.

It’s really just one room with two beds, one in each corner, and a table in the middle. It’s used by fishermen as an easy, accessible place to rest and to store their equipment before they go to sea. Claude walks towards one bed and puts Byleth down. He lets go of her legs and she sits gently.

“How is your ankle?” he asks.

She traces circles in the air with her foot.

“It almost doesn’t hurt anymore,” she says.

“Good. We’re all set for tomorrow, then. I’ll go through the list one last time before we leave.”

He’s about to leave for his own corner of the room when she interrupts him.

“Claude.”

He turns his head and she hands him over a long object wrapped in fabric. He recognises the thing she won earlier, in the bar. The shape is familiar, and so he knows what it is before he unwraps it.

“You bet this...?” he asks as he lets his fingers travel along the silver bow.

“It was too expensive otherwise.”

“What if you’d lost?”

She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t have lost. It’s for you.”

“For me?”

“It was forged by Zoltan,” Byleth continues, stretching her arms as she gets rid of her shoes. “He was a very famous smith, a long time ago…”

Claude looks at the weapon with some sort of reverence. It’s a precious present.

“I cannot…”

“Just accept it.”

He shakes his head. “No, I mean… I cannot use it. I told you, my arm…”

Byleth crooks a finger at him and Claude diligently sits beside her on the bed.

“Look,” she continues, ignoring his complaints, “it’s made of Wootz steel. It’s probably the best bow one could get.”

“I know, but… Why gift it to me?” He’d almost feel guilty, and despite his best efforts, it transpires through his voice.

“I was thinking… I could help you.”

“I’m not sure about it…” he whispers.

“You told me you never saw a doctor… I’m not an expert, of course, but I could have a look at you. I helped some people with injuries after … after the war.”

Claude smiles a little without noticing. It’s how he remembers her, as the woman who tries to help as much as she can even when she has no idea of what she’s doing, and screw the consequences. He wonders if it was the same reasoning that got her to fight a war.

“I doubt I will be ready for our exploration,” he says.

“You won’t have to be. For now, I could use the bow myself.”

“Then what, do you intend to stay with me after we are done?” Claude says, his voice almost a whisper.

“It won’t really take that long…”

Byleth turns her head to him. Her eyes are bright, and her cheeks slightly flushed. Claude wonders if it’s because of the alcohol. Sited side by side, their tights are almost touching. He thinks about her proposition and something warm bursts inside his chest.

Claude hasn’t touched a bow since the _incident_. He’s not even sure he’d be able to hold one straight if he tried. His right arm is intact, but archery requires to use both. He was afraid of what would happen if he realised he’d never be able to nock an arrow again. But none of it is necessary for his plan to succeed anyway. Not when she is here, now.

Byleth hand caresses the cool metal of the bow until her fingers, slowly but surely, find Claude’s.

“When I met you in Morfis,” she mutters eyes fixated on their joint hands, “something boiled inside of me. I’ve never been good with feelings… So, at first, I thought it was hatred, but…”

She stops, as if she is trying to add something but the word won’t come out.

Claude lowers his head and chases her gaze. She looks… Shy? Intimidated? It’s a strange look on her.

Her hand leaves his and her fingers travel carefully along his tight. Claude tracks them with his eyes without saying a word. He gulps when she reaches the hem of his pants.

Her skin is pale like that of a porcelain doll against the dark fabric of his clothes, and Claude cannot prevent his thoughts from wandering to a few days ago, when he went back to the pool to leave the unguent he had prepared for her and she was bathing in the clear water, completely naked and oblivious to him. He had no intention to pry, but his eyes had wandered a tad too long on her figure. The vision stuck to him like a vice.

But this time around, under the moonlight, her expression complex and hurt despite her gestures telling otherwise, there is nothing erotic about her. She is no naiad; she looks livid like a corpse. Something is wrong, very wrong.

“Byleth,” Claude finds the strength to whisper, “what are you doing?”

“You’ve been looking at me all night long,” she mutters without meeting his gaze, caressing his lower abdomen.

“Everyone was.” His words are defiant, but his body betrays him.

“But not like that… Not like you did.” Her voice is trembling, tumbling on these last words.

“Don’t you want this?” she adds, her glassy eyes fixated on his now obviously swollen crotch.

 _Give me a break,_ Claude thinks. _I’m only human_. And how long has it been anyway since he last … It takes him everything he has into him to chase away the visions and to forget about the fire burning inside his pants. He grasps her wrist.

“No,” he shakes his head. “No, I don’t want this. Do you? Really?”

“I…” Her voice is shaking and her lips trembling. She looks like she’s about to cry now, struggling to add something.

“What with you lately anyway…?” Claude says, his own voice raspy with pent-up frustration. “You are acting … weird.”

Byleth breathes quickly and she looks at him with pure distress on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says, and in the way the words spill out of her lips, it’s as if she’s asking forgiveness for more than just misreading the mood. Her eyes waver from right to left, everywhere but on his face. He hates that look. There is no place for doubt in that picture of her he carefully fabricated in his mind.

“Listen, it’s fine. Just… Forget about it, OK?” Claude gets up and tries to find some composure despite his state. “We should both get a good night of sleep. For tomorrow.”

Incapable of looking at him, Byleth settles for a slow nod instead.

Claude wants to punch himself in the face as he watches her slip under her covers. Did he really send that sort of signals? And if so, why was she forcing herself anyway?

He ponders what’s the best option for him now; to have a good swim in the cold sea, or just to bury himself inside his bed and try to think about something else. Sleep doesn’t seem like a possibility for now.

“Do you still want to help me…?” Byleth asks, her back turned to him.

“Of course…”

He hates this. He opts for the sea.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Byleth knows what it’s like to have someone precious torn apart from you.

There is no forgiveness to be asked, for some things are unforgivable. And if there are many people she wronged in the past, then they aren’t there to complain anymore. All are dead. All, but Claude. Claude is still there. And it’s obvious that the consequences of her actions are still burdening him, both physically and mentally. She saw him. She heard him. He’s hiding it, but she’s sure he’s suffering.

But she knows she can fix him. She already did it once, after all. It was so easy, then, when the Crest of Flame still burnt within her veins. She killed Claude in Derdriu and when a wave of despair crushed over her as she saw he was still smiling at her even in death—not a wicked, calculated smile but one of pure unaltered affection—she twisted time and she brought him back to life. Then she said to Edelgard and convinced herself that sparing him was the wisest move to make but what it really was, was an act of defiance.

Curled up in her bed, she looks at the wall right in front of her.

 _We are going to die_ , she thinks. She read the books Claude gave her, and that is the conclusion she reached. He was right, the place probably holds the answers she’s looking for… But the risks don’t make it worth it.

She thought about Edelgard, Hubert, Dorothea, Linhardt… How they all found a way to atone for their sins, committing themselves to work or to their art, to make the world a better place. She is not like them. All she ever did was closing her eyes as they moved on and she stayed still, delving on a past she tried to forget in the arms of the only person who still seemed stuck there with her, somewhere on the battlefield. 

It quickly came as an evidence that her guilt had been clouding her mind for years. She had no work to drown herself into, no family to take care of and no greater purpose. But she needs to repay Claude, in one way or another. She’s been unfair to him, treating him like an enemy when he told her he never saw her as less than a friend. She was cruel, dismissive, and cold. She looked at all his actions with baseless suspicion.

She cannot rewrite the past. All she has is _now_ , this impossible maze waiting for her, and hidden within, something Claude wants.

“What Claude wants”, she will give it all to him, she decided.

_I will please him. Devote myself to him._

Claude re-enters the room. He wishes her goodnight, and his voice fades away into nothing.

_I will protect him. Anything to alleviate his pain._

Byleth feigns sleep. She hears him when he takes off his clothes and ruffles the sheets of his bed and she wonders when she will find the strength to truly confess her sins. It was all so much easier when she simply hated him and she had convinced herself the feeling was mutual.

_I will do as he says… As for Edelgard…_

Ah.

_What will become of her if I die?_

Maybe this is it, the price to pay for absolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I should add "maladaptive coping mechanisms" to the tags haha
> 
> This was longer than planned, to be honest... I still hope to wrap this up before the end of the year, but there's a chance I split the other chapters.
> 
> Thank you for your comments as always. We're finally, finally getting there next time :)


	7. Dark Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update!
> 
> Turns out, things are quicker to write when you don't coat them with shittons of angst.

It’s a dream within a dream.

A dream of a field turned black by mud, of dark clouds that obscure the sun and turn day into night. A dream of thunder and blood.

Byleth wakes up in a cold sweat, but she’s not really awakened, for she is still inside another dream. Or maybe this one is more of a memory.

She is surrounded by her warm blankets and her plump pillows, yet it still takes her a few seconds to understand where she is. When her eyes finally adjust to the darkness, she is met with the familiar vision of her furniture. The curtains are shut but the room clearly appears when lightning cut through the night in a deafening roar. She hears a growl behind her and so she lets her hand wanders there to find the comforting skin of her lover. He is still cool.

“Ah… You are back…” she murmurs.

“What is it?” he says, his deep voice hoarse from sleep.

She lets out a deep sigh, curls her body against his own.

“Sorry… Did I wake you up?”

His left arm snakes around her waist and he pulls her closer to his chest.

“No. Were you having a nightmare?” he murmurs into her hair.

“It’s because of the storm,” she whispers.

Another lightning pierces the sky. She can see his long, pale fingers intertwined with hers. He’s slowly getting warmer. He probably just came home, she realises.

He bites her neck gently and she lets out a groan before rolling to face him. He smells like wet grass.

“You should accompany me,” he says, his hands now wandering below her nightgown. “To hunt at night.”

She catches her breath when she feels his fingers pressing between her tights.

“I was worried about you. I’m hearing rumours,” she manages to say, the hint of a sob in her voice. “What if they find out…”

“You are too kind.”

“I don’t know how I could go on if I lost you,” she whispers.

He catches her lips as his fingers continue to work on her.

“We could run away together,” he says when their mouths part. “Have a life somewhere else. We are not meant to live among them.”

She lets out a moan.

“You know I cannot leave her,” she mutters. “She’s like…”

“Like a flame. And you are, poor insect, too happy to let her burn your wings.” He sucks at the tender skin on her neck.

“This… Ah… Sounds familiar…”

“Sometimes I wonder… If you would rather lie with her than with me.”

“That’s … cruel. And untrue.”

“I was jesting,” he says, but it’s always hard to tell with him. “You are the same for me. My flame.”

She grabs his wrist as she feels herself coming, and she sinks her nails into his skin, scratching him to the blood.

“Jeri—”

Byleth gasps and wakes up again, this time for real. Her eyes are wide open, but it makes little difference. It’s pitch-black; so dark she wouldn’t even be able to see the tip of her fingers if she holds them right in front of her face. Surrounded by absolute darkness, her body feels weightless, as if it were floating into nothing. But on her right side, she hears the calm and low snoring of Claude. His head rests against her shoulder and his soft hair caresses her cheek, anchoring her into reality.

When she thinks about what happened the night before, the dream she just had suddenly isn’t all that surprising. Claude didn’t bring it up when then departed and for that, she is grateful, even if she imagines he simply didn’t want to jeopardise their mission. As far as she’s concerned, she would rather never talk about it ever again. It was too much, all too much. He didn’t accept her help… but he didn’t refuse either. And in the end, she didn’t even manage to tell her feelings to Claude.

So, they left without saying much more than the bare minimum, and if there was a certain uneasiness between them, they both did their best to ignore it. They walked for hours and hours deep inside the city until they lost all sense of time. They became so tired after a while, they agreed to take a break. They sat down their back to a wall and Claude traced a circle around them with pink salt—he said the smell would mask their own and protect them from monsters. Then, they blew off their torch. Light made them easy preys, he explained.

Claude shouldn’t be asleep, though. They had agreed to take turns. Byleth taps his head gently.

“Claude… Wake up.”

His low groan is followed by a scream.

“Wah!”

“Is everything all right?” Byleth asks, mildly concerned.

She hears him calming down his breathing and ruffling his hair as he slowly separates from her.

“I’m good. I thought I went blind for a moment.”

There’s the distinctive click of the oil lamp he wears around his neck, followed by a faint light.

“You fell asleep,” Byleth tells him, her eyes now fixated on the small lamp. The light is almost imperceptible but in that instant, the total darkness surrounding them, it means the whole world to her.

“Wasn’t sleep the reason why we took a break in the first place?” Claude asks, stretching his legs and ruining the salt circle in the process.

“We were supposed to take turns…”

“And we agreed you had to take the first… Right…?” Claude pinches between his eyes. “Actually, I can’t remember. We did take turns… Didn’t we? Urgh…”

“It’s the darkness,” Byleth says, shaking her head. “It’s getting to our heads. Maybe we should keep a light on the next time we sleep. Monsters shouldn’t be an issue for now, right?”

Claude adjusts his posture and takes the maps out of his bag.

“I’d rather be safe than sorry, but so close to the surface, I’m more worried about other humans,” he says. “But I agree. We were careless.”

He spreads the maps on the floor in front of him. Byleth lights her torch and gets closer to him.

Claude’s map is divided between several sheets. He made one for each “level”. Every ten metres lower than the previous one is a new “level”. The plans are fairly straightforward but also incomplete. He told Byleth that the first ten levels or so were actually very well surveyed, but that when he reproduced the maps, he only focused on the most direct path possible to their objective: the Great Library. It’s at around minus two thousand metres from the surface. And much more in distance to walk.

“How far away are we?” Byleth asks.

“From the surface? Still very close,” Claude answers. “The darkness is messing up with us, skewing our perception of distance and time. It’s a known phenomenon. We should get used to it… Eventually.” He lifts one sheet, then another one, and another one, counting how many separate them from their objective. Byleth stops counting after a while, it’s more depressing than helpful.

“I’ll be honest…” Claude says, “the first days will be hard. Each minute we’ll spend there will feel five times longer than it actually is.”

Byleth hides a grimace. She knew what this exploration would entail, of course. Claude made it clear—or his books did anyway. And if she’s here, it’s not just for her, it’s also for Edelgard, and for Claude. She suspects he is also looking for something in Mu. She will have to figure out what, if she wants to help him. But right now, it is as if she already forgot what the sunlight felt like. It’s much harder than anticipated.

Claude gathers his maps, stands up and dusts his pants.

“We should keep going. For a few levels at least. Then we will find an isolated house, light a fire and have a proper dinner and a good night of sleep.” He pauses. “Well, ‘night’… You know what I mean.”

He offers her a hand, that she gladly takes.

The entry-level section of the city looked like an ordinary town, one where the open sky and horizon were simply replaced by hard rock. People were clearly still living there; some who weren’t so lucky in life, Byleth figured. Slaves, beggars, orphans and runaways… As they made their way through the streets, they could feel the gazes following them, watching in terror as if they were seeing ghosts. The buildings went on and on, for about a kilometre deep inside the earth, and it was a surprisingly easy walk, far from what Byleth would have expected. The outside light was still reaching every corner thanks to strategically placed mirrors. Some seemed antique, other more recent, and Claude explained to her that in the past, this is already how the people who lived on this level got light. It was almost a pleasant experience, truth to be told, albeit a bit weird, until they reached the first stairs.

They were leading down, obviously, into a darkness that seemed like it could swallow them alive. Claude lit up a torch that he gave to Byleth, then he turned on the oil lamp he kept around his neck secured by a chain.

 _This is where things start getting ugly_ , he told Byleth as he walked into what looked like a bottomless well with barely any hesitation.

And this is where they have been for hours now, stairs after stairs, slope after slope, deeper and deeper underground, surrounded by a terrifying, impenetrable darkness. The lower they go, the more it seems to amplify. Byleth never knew it could get that dark. They can barely see more than a few metres around them. The light cast by their flames turn statues into monsters, buildings into unfathomable shapes. And there is the terrible silence. No life, no wind, not a single sound but the one made by their steps and their ragged breathing.

Lost in her thoughts, Byleth tumbles on a pebble and bumps into Claude, who’s still leading the way.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Yes…”

When they talk, it’s like the environment becomes more palpable. But then their voices bounce back on the walls and she feels claustrophobic. It’s not like they have much to talk about anyway. She hates the dark. It always frightened her, and things didn’t get easier with time.

“Even knowing the place used to be well lit…” Byleth says, “I don’t understand how people could live here … underground… It’s unnatural.”

“It’s true that most civilisations are turned to the sky,” Claude says. He’s trying to dissimulate it, but his voice is trembling. Out of fear or excitement, though, it’s hard to tell. “Societies grow vertically,” he continues, “and they try to design buildings that always go higher and higher. Do you know why? It’s because they perceive the sky as of divine essence.”

“ _The Goddess watches over Fódlan from her kingdom above_ …” Byleth murmurs.

“Exactly. This is why the arrows of the cathedral reached so high. Why the Archbishop slept in the highest room you could find on the monastery grounds.”

“What does it say about a civilisation turned to the ground, then…” She cannot help thinking about Shambhala. “Do they fear the gods instead? Do they reject them?”

“That’s one answer, for sure,” Claude says with a hint of mystery in the voice. He checks his map once again and directs them into a street on their right. “Personally, I think they simply worshipped something else. A god that didn’t reside in the sky. That wasn’t bright like the sun.”

“A maleficent god…”

Claude shakes his head, although in the darkness, he’s no more than a silhouette. “Eh, I wouldn’t go that far. After all, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are all relative concepts. I, for one, wouldn’t necessarily consider Fódlan’s Goddess is inherently good. And I suppose you wouldn’t either. But the scriptures say otherwise.”

Sothis didn’t seem all that bad, Byleth thinks. But what makes a goddess one, in the first place? Wasn’t Sothis once an entity made of flesh and blood, like Rhea? Like herself?

“You will see, the further down we go, the more intricate the place becomes. The architecture, the statues … the lower levels were reserved for the elites, it seems. Hence my theory: closer to the gods.”

He finds himself in front of a huge boulder that he easily jumps over.

“And the library is down there as well,” Byleth says, following suit.

“Yes. At some point, these craved passageways are expanding, and we will find ourselves under giant vaults. It will be less oppressive… But there will be many monsters.”

“It’s like the tomb,” Byleth murmurs.

“A tomb? No, it’s much bigger in scale. Think of hundreds of metres in height, kilometres in length. That’s the sort of place where the library is located.”

“I meant like the Holy Tomb,” Byleth corrects.

“Oh.” He pauses. “You went to all the funky places in the monastery, didn’t you…?”

She nods. “In many ways… It’s similar.” Shambhala was also reminiscent of the Holy Tomb. A glooming silence, an eerie light. Desecrated icons and a forgotten civilisation buried below earth.

“What do you think happened to the people who lived there?” she asks Claude, thinking more and more about the starless city they painted red with blood.

“Who knows? Apparently, they disappeared a long time ago.”

“But surely you have your own theory, Claude. You always do.”

He smiles at that, not sure if she’s mocking him or not.

“You know me well, don’t you? …

“Ah.”

“What’s happening?” Byleth asks, reaching his side.

He points at the wall in front of them. “It’s a dead end.”

So far, the darkness aside, it was really no more than an easy walk and they met very little obstacles. Claude looks frustrated.

“It’s what I feared,” he says. “Earthquakes made some previously opened paths unusable.”

“But there’s an alternative, isn’t there?” Byleth asks him, trying to read his face. It was never an easy exercise, as the day before proved her, but with so little light it has become next to impossible.

“Yes, of course.” He skims through his maps. “Give me more light, would you…?”

Byleth brings her torch closer and he observes the paper, a hand scratching his chin and the stubble that already grew back there.

“So far,” he says, “we followed the easy path. All the streets of the city naturally go down, but the stairs were easier to practise. More direct.”

“What does it mean, then?”

“That we’ll have to walk more.” He stores his maps again and takes out a compass. “Let’s go,” he says, squinting to read the direction indicated by the needle.

Byleth follows him and she lets her hand wander along the wall on her left side. Like on every other hard surface of the city, intricate patterns are engraved in a curious material that feels a bit like amber to the touch.

They take another turn, and Claude suddenly stops. Byleth doesn’t have to ask him why—the light is reflecting back at them two red dots, right in front of them. The creature screeches, and the dots slowly come closer.

“It’s a gargoyle,” Claude says. Byleth wants to move forward, but he blocks her with his arm. “Leave it to me.”

Byleth read all about gargoyles in the books Claude gave her. They look strangely similar to humans, at first glance. Bipedal, but with four members, around two metres in height. Even their face is uncannily close in appearance to their own, with their defined noses and their two eyes. But gargoyles also have strong wings, a pointy tail, and piercing teeth. They usually live in a pack, but that’s not the case for this particular species. They live in complete darkness, and should you surprise one with light, you would blind it at first. But it only takes them a few second to adjust and go on a rampage. Because it turns out, gargoyles also love fresh blood, from other animals, from other gargoyles, and from humans. The creature screeches again as it comes closer.

“Step back,” Claude orders to Byleth. He crams his compass into her free hand.

He extends his right arm before him, two fingers pointed at the creature. Slowly but surely, energy builds up inside his body until it’s strong enough Byleth can feel it electrifying the atmosphere. It goes up and up and the air surrounding Claude vibrates more and more intensely, until the energy escapes from the tip of his fingers in the form of a strong gush of wind. It flies to the gargoyle in the blink of an eye, sending its head rolling onto the floor.

“I told you I wasn’t bad at it,” Claude says.

Byleth stays silent. She never saw this type of magic before; he didn’t even use a circle. Claude spits on the floor. It’s too dark to tell, but Byleth knows it is blood.

“Morfis’ magic is as powerful as dreadful,” Claude says when he turns back and he sees the fear written all over her face. “Thankfully, with you around, we shouldn’t have to rely on it too much. But it’s easier when the corridors are this narrow.”

Byleth moves forward to survey the rest of their surroundings, leaving Claude behind as he catches his breath. She cannot let him do as he wants with this magic, the toll is way too high. Only one spell and he’s already out of breath.

“I think it was alone,” she says as she passes by the cadaver. Blood is still flowing out of the severed neck.

When she’s close enough to have a sight at Claude again, she sees he’s making signs with his hands, urging her to turn around. She immediately does so, but as far as her light can reach, there is nothing. Nothing but a sound, that quickly goes louder as it approaches.

“Aye, aye, travellers!”

It’s a feminine voice, coming from the dark. She speaks Fódlanese with a strong accent.

“Fear not,” she says, “I came to help you.”

Byleth continues to swipe her torch in front of her until a silhouette appears. Much to their surprise, it’s an old woman.

“How do you move in the dark?” Byleth asks dumbfounded. Her right hand moves to her waist to take her dagger. Claude told her humans could be as dangerous as beasts, down there.

“I’m afraid I haven’t needed light in a very long time,” the woman answers. She comes closer and she opens her eyes. They are completely white.

“I’m not a threat,” she says to Claude’s attention. He was trying to go around her.

“You passed by my house, and I remembered about the gargoyle I heard this morning. But I guess it’s been taken care of.” She hits the ground with a cane.

“Your house?” Claude asks.

“Yes, my house. And what about it, young man?”

“You live here,” he states, waiting for a punchline that doesn’t come.

“Not all the time.”

Byleth shakes her head, trying to make sense out of the surreal situation.

“In the dark?”

“Makes very little difference to me. But enough questions from you. Do you know what time it is?” the woman asks.

Claude and Byleth stay silent for a while, looking at each other. They were ready to encounter everything, down there. Monsters, unknown creatures, criminals. But not an old, blind woman.

“I have no idea,” Claude finally answers, choking back an awkward laugher.

“Then you need to take a break before the darkness gets to your mind,” the woman says.

She turns back to the darkness.

“Come with me.”

Like caught up in a spell, they exchange another look, and follow her.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

She leads them to a small house, that is indeed along the path they took earlier. In the dark, they probably passed over it without noticing it was inhabited.

“Put some fire in there,” the old woman orders, pointing at a hole in the centre of the room. Byleth obeys and the whole house suddenly lights up.

“A light-catcher,” Claude states, looking all around him. “It reflects back whatever light source you put inside and amplifies it.”

The old woman sits down on a pillow. The room is furnished like a regular house would be.

“Every building here has one,” she says. “But please, sit down, children.”

They look at each other, out of words to say.

“I come here once a year, to meditate,” she says calmly.

“It’s so far from the surface,” Byleth says, thinking about how much they had to walk to get there.

“It only looks like it for you because you are used to rely on your sight. But whether it’s here or outside, it’s always the same ground, and the same rules. There is nothing to fear. Remember this well, for it could prove useful in the future.”

Then, the old woman starts talking with them, and the more she talks, the more comfortable they get. She says that because there are so little people around here, it’s both very calm, and very safe. She helps people who come this way, to give them one last haven before they go deeper. Even the monsters don’t seem to bother her, probably because she is too old to make for a good meal, she jokes.

If Byleth is fascinated by her, Claude is mostly amused and they both converse like old friends, talking about the mushrooms she collects in a cave nearby and of the water pumps installed in every building. Every time she answers his questions and he learns more about the place, his green eyes shine like that of a child in front of a candy store.

Byleth looks around her. With so much light on, it almost doesn’t feel like they are buried underground. It’s merely as if it were night-time, and they were staying at a friend’s place. The temperature is warm and the water she gave them is cool. Her eyes stop on a small statue sited on a shelf. It’s made of stone and it represents a human figure, draped in a gown. Wings are craved on its back. It’s hard to say if it’s supposed to represent a man or a woman, for the face has been scratched off.

“Is it your god?” Byleth asks aloud. “The idol without a face…”

The old woman interrupts herself and then she laughs, quickly joined by Claude. Byleth wonders what’s so funny about that.

“Only in Fódlan do people worship idols,” Claude explains to her when he sees how lost she looks.

“It’s the god of the people who lived here before,” the old woman explains. “The Dark Star.”

“The Dark Star…” Byleth repeats slowly.

“Aye. You two are going to the Great Library, aren’t you? You’ll see plenty of icons down there.”

“How is it? Underground?” Claude asks.

“After the next stairs, the artificial corridors are linked to a cave system. It’s more open, and there’s even rivers. If you go even lower than that, past the library, the legend has it that it becomes so hot you cook alive. But no one really knows. Too dangerous. Too many monsters. And it’s getting worse lately.”

“I read those texts,” Claude says. “I don’t think all the rumours are true. But I think there’s probably a volcano down there.”

“You are a clever one.” The woman smiles.

“It would also explain the earthquakes,” Claude continues, nodding frankly.

“So,” Byleth says, “no one ever reached the bottom of Mu?”

“People tried,” the old woman answers, “but they never made it that far. Then last year, there was an incident.”

“An incident?”

She nods slowly. “They were supposed to stay at the library, but a group got cocky. They never came back, but some people said they could hear the screams. See, down there, because it’s much more open, loud sounds reverberate. Sometimes it feels like the person is right next to you, but they could be a day worth of walk away. Ever since that incident, there have been more monsters, and more earthquakes. People just don’t bother anymore. Not even with the library. But you should be fine, as long as you don’t venture further than that.”

“We aren’t,” Byleth says. She looks at Claude. _Are we?_

“This group probably bothered the Dark Star sleeping down there,” Claude says sarcastically.

The old woman turns her face to him.

“Maybe they did,” she says. She looks dead serious.

They eat after that. Claude cooks mushrooms and rice for them, and he cannot stop marvelling over the plumbing and the mechanical pump that carries groundwater to them. He imagines aloud the sort of life that existed there before, a strange civilisation deprived of natural light but still evolving with advanced technology.

When they ask the old woman why she isn’t afraid of them, she answers that she has nothing to fear of humans. She lost her sight at an early age, she explains, and she found inner peace in meditation and prayers. On the surface, she lives in one of Morfis’ many temples where she works as a fortune teller.

Much to Byleth’s surprise, this immediately picks up Claude’s interest.

“How do you do it?” he asks her.

They are still all around the fire, albeit after dinner their posture is much less dignified than it used to be. They almost feel at home.

“It’s not really future that I read,” the woman says. “It’s character. And character can shape your future.”

“That’s true enough,” Claude says. Byleth eyes at him and at his smirk. She wonders if the old woman can feel the sarcasm through his voice.

“Since you don’t trust me, I can show you.”

 _Oh_. She definitely can.

“Sure,” Claude says with humour. He has no ill intentions, Byleth thinks. He looks more like … amused? Or curious.

“Come closer,” the woman mimics, and when he drags himself closer to her, she expands her hands and touches his face.

“Sharp jaw… High cheeks…” she whispers, her fingers tracing over his features. “The face of ambition.”

Claude chuckles.

“Really? And where does that come from...?”

“They say great conquerors bore the same features. Like King Darius I.”

Claude smiles and the woman gives him a small tap on the cheek.

“Shh. Stay still,” she scolds. Her fingers brush over his lips, then up to his eyelids and his brow.

“Kind eyes…” she continues. She taps between his eyes and pauses for a moment. “Mmh… You are very desperate, aren’t you...?”

Claude’s smile slowly disappears from his face. “If you say so, grandma,” he says, pushing her hands away gently.

“Am I wrong?” She bends over to whisper in his ear. “I didn’t comment on it, but you also have the mouth of a liar.”

“Well, well,” Claude mocks, “now that you painted me a good portrait, how about you get a look at my partner?” 

_Ambitious, desperate_ … Byleth thinks as the old woman extends her bony fingers to her. None of those are words she would have used to describe Claude. She closes her eyes.

Just like with Claude, the old woman brushes over her jaw, her nose, her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids…

“Oh…

“You, child… Are something else, aren’t you...?”

Claude is the one answering.

“She’s a prophet,” he murmurs.

“There’s a lot of sadness in you,” the old woman says, ignoring Claude. “And a lot of doubt.”

Claude squints as Byleth meets his eyes. He looks lost, as if he’s expecting her to deny the words the woman used. She doesn’t.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

They left in the morning—or when the woman told us it was morning anyway—and thanked her again and again for her help. She told them about the next quickest way to reach the level below, and so they decided to follow her advices.

The longer they’ve been staying in Mu, the more different Claude seems to be, Byleth muses, looking at his dynamic steps as he jumps over a crumbled wall. He looks like someone else, very different from the gloomy, quiet, unpredictable man he has been so far. And yet, he’s closer than ever to the boy she remembers.

“What with that smirk?” she asks him after a while as they finally find a street narrowing straight-up downstairs.

“Nothing,” Claude lies, “I was just thinking about how you are ‘full of doubt’…”

Here he goes again.

“Is that the reason why you’ve been acting all weird?” he asks her. “Do you doubt we’ll find what you’re looking for?”

Acting all weird. He could be referencing a hundred different things, but Byleth tries not to blush at what comes to her mind first.

She only wanted to satisfy him… He certainly looked like he needed it. And she misunderstood his intentions—she clearly did—but how was she supposed to know when he looked at her so intensively? In the past, Dorothea had very, very precise words to describe this type of gaze to her. _He wants you all for himself_ , _Professor,_ she had said, _and the sort of private lessons he wants don’t involve weapons_.

But it’s better if Claude doesn’t feel _that way_ about her. Sex always makes things complicated, she knows. It will be easier to tell him her own intentions if it isn’t in the way… When she finds the courage to.

“Suddenly her words are the truth, then?” Byleth finally manages to say to hide her embarrassment.

Claude chuckles. “Eh, you would also have denied it if she described you with the same words she used to describe me.”

“Who was he,” Byleth asks, “the man she compared you to?”

He stops walking. “Darius I?” He pauses. “A king. In Almyra. Among the most famous ones, actually.”

“An Almyran king.”

“He waged war on Fódlan, and some say he even marched on what used to be the capital back then, before he was forced to retreat by the Imperial Army. He still killed a lot of people and burnt down some cities. Your typical warmonger.”

Byleth blinks. She’s intimately familiar with the bloody history between both countries, of course, but apparently no one really bothers to teach about their military defeats.

“You know,” Claude adds, “I always wondered what it was like to have you as a teacher. Hanneman could be very boring. But … clearly, history isn’t your strongest point.”

“They didn’t hire me for that,” Byleth states. They didn’t hire her for her capabilities either, actually. It was only for _herself_ and whatever plans Rhea had for her.

“Definitely not!” Claude laughs and the sound almost makes her smile.

Back in Senerio, he told her he always wanted to go to this place. Is this why? Despite everything, he seems much happier, there. In the dark, where she cannot really see the dark circles under his eyes and the fatigue all over his face, he is really just Claude, the bizarre, energetic, knowledgeable man she used to know. It is as if he were himself again.

A gush of cool air suddenly rushes over them when they reach an even surface again, and it extinguishes her torch. When she lights it up again, she realises they aren’t walking on pavement anymore. The scenery around them—what they manage to make out of it anyway—has changed. The streets are larger, the buildings sparser. If so far, everything looked geometrical and ordered, it’s much more chaotic there. Wilder. They hear a sound, like a melody. It’s a river, Byleth identifies. Another gush of wind blows in their direction and this time, Byleth protects the fire. A chill runs down her spine when an animalistic, primal growl is heard in the distance.


	8. Guilty Conscience

By three times, Claude considered running away.

The first time was when the night sky turned red as the imperial army marched on Garreg Mach. Dying to protect Rhea just didn’t sound like a compelling idea at all. His plan was fairly polished: all he had to do was to sneak away during the battle—he knew about some secret passageway that would lead him to safety in the valley down below. From there, it was only a week worth of walk to reach the sea up north. It wouldn’t be easy, but he wasn’t afraid. He had enough money to bribe a fisherman and to reach Almyra safely by the sea. But in the end, he stayed, thinking about how his dreams would be forever jeopardised if he were to leave.

The second time was the day his grandfather died. He already had been assuming the late Duke’s duties for some time, but the way the Alliance nobles immediately turned their backs to him left a sour taste in his mouth. He felt petty for a few days—and this was a noticeable weakness of his, his pettiness—thought about how funny their ungrateful faces would look when they’d figured out he’d left. But when he took Failnaught into his hands for the first time, everything changed. He had wanted a Relic for so long. It would have been stupid to leave now.

The third time, which was perhaps the closest he ever was to actually leave, was when his spies reported some unusual Imperial activity at Garreg Mach. It didn’t take him long to realise what this implied: the Alliance was next on the Empire’s list. It didn’t surprise him, and if the prospect of facing the Imperial Army was terrifying, it amused him to some degree when he understood Edelgard’s attack was motivated by fear. Running away would have been easier than ever and the only way to guarantee his survival, and so, he thought about it more than he would admit, every night he’d fly offshore to train on his wyvern’s back. There were plenty of people who would be happy enough to lead instead of him. No one would miss him if he were to sneak away.

Claude had always despised the Roundtable and the hatred was mutual. Every council ended up in the same fashion: two voices in favour of an abdication to the Empire; two in favour of supporting the Church of Seiros. Claude always made sure to sit in between. It was simple mathematics: by this act of abstention, he had the power to freeze all decisions. For this behaviour, he got called a coward and a quitter and, eventually, he managed to anger everyone. However, as long as it meant he could obtain what he wanted, none of it mattered to him.

In the eyes of the people of Derdriu, he was simply the man who, for five whole years, had managed to spare them a war they’d rather not get involved into. At the end of the day, political matters and ideology didn’t matter to the people; being well and alive did. And Claude was so good with words and empty promises that somehow, they had come to respect him.

Part of him wanted to confess he was doing it for him before all, to protect his stronghold and therefore his plans for as long as possible, but when Ignatz and Leonie volunteered to defend the Great Bridge of Myrddin when they had no obligation to, he realised that the lie had some truth to it. For the first time in his life, people genuinely relied on him. And for that, much like they loved him, he loved them back. He never felt like he was deserving of any of it, though, and so he stayed quiet. To silence his guilt, he decided to face his fears and to stay and fight the Empire, no matter the cost.

And once again, Claude didn’t run away. He owed them as much; that’s what he kept telling himself as the Imperial flags appeared on the horizon. He was ready to lose it all. Everything would be all right, as long as he was in control.

Yes, the most important thing for Claude is to keep control. On other people, on his environment, and, most importantly, on himself.

“Stop it!” Byleth yells at him. Much like him, she’s covered in monster blood. Unlike him, it’s not mixed with her own.

Claude tastes iron in his mouth and he spits some gore on the ground. It’s getting easier every time.

“I’m fine,” he lies, and Byleth is having none of it. She doesn’t like it, obviously, when he’s in control. On the battlefield, she’s always been the thinking head, the tactician. Claude was always more of a free spirit. He often wondered what sort of team they would have made together and well; this little adventure is giving him a good taste of it.

“ _Me the brains, and you the blade_!” Byleth shouts. “Those were your words! It was the deal! Let me take care of them!”

When she’s mad at him like that—and she’s been a lot these past few days—Claude starts to think she’s back to her usual self. It’s reassuring in a sense, for he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the softer, insecure side of her.

Of course, she isn’t wrong. Among other things, he brought her here so she would fight for him. But the truth is, he needs to train as well, to see how far exactly he can push his body. This is his only chance to figure out his magic against real targets before things start turning sour. He needs to be ready for what’s to come. That’s why despite Byleth’s complaints, he’s been casting spell after spell against the monsters coming at them. He cannot tell her that, though, because he cannot afford to show her his hand just yet.

“I can manage just fine,” he says, wiping the blood off his lips with the back of his hand. Byleth plunges toward him sword first and pierces something behind him, her blade brushing over his hip.

“You cannot,” she says as the monster screeches in pain. Her eyes are dark.

This is her in her natural element, true to her moniker. The Ashen Demon. He saw this side of her a few days ago, against that assassin in Erinys. And before that, on the battlefield. Ever since they reached this level, they have been surrounded by wave after wave of monsters. It leaves them with little time to think, and even less to rest. But Byleth is a quick learner and as Claude had predicted, they both got used to the darkness to some extent. They aren’t startled anymore by the smallest noises—falling pebbles, underground rivers, or even their own respiration. If there is only so much their eyes can achieve, their sight adjusted to the darkness and their ears learnt how to differentiate rats from actual threats.

Sadly, circumstances made it so they couldn’t follow the path Claude had in mind initially, the one he was familiar with—although he keeps that last detail to himself. Thankfully, he was careful enough to take a book with him, one where several other maps figure. They cover paths that don’t appear on his own plans. He will have to thank Nahkt for that, the old man just wouldn’t let him go without it. However, it’s much of a pain to use. It’s really no more than a cheap copy of the exploration diary of some unknown adventurer. The scales are all wrong and some parts are plain unreadable.

Every other turn, Claude is juggling between this book and his own maps, consulting his compass and trying to remember some trails he read about long ago. But while he’d be the first to admit his legendary patience has grown thin with time, in this labyrinth he feels like a new man. New roads mean new things to explore. New paths mean new knowledge. This is no more than another challenge for him, a new puzzle to solve. And so, he puts his brain to work in impossible conditions all while maintaining the facade of a man in control. He cherishes the novelty amidst the adrenaline, and he burns with the prospect of finally, finally obtaining what he’s looking for.

Although Byleth is following him without saying a word, Claude is confident she isn’t entirely dupe when it comes to his bravado. They got lost several times, after all, although the maps aren’t the only ones to blame here—some paths are plainly impossible to take. The room in which they are progressing right now is an immense cave divided in two by a canyon. At the bottom of it, there’s a river which they cannot see it, much like they cannot distinguish how far down below it is. On their side of the canyon, they progress on a fairly large passage, the hole on their left and buildings carved directly into the rock on their right. Where the edge of the road hasn’t crumbled down, there are even guardrails. Claude imagines it’s the same on the other side. It was probably a very pretty place in the past, when there was light and it wasn’t infected by monsters.

The initial path, the one he took last year, is winding down below, on the river’s banks. This is all he needs to know they are in the right direction, even if isn’t much if the road before them is blocked. And right now, it is: about two metres ahead of them, the ground crumbles into the void, leaving only a narrow ledge against the building facades. The missing road extends to an unknown distance. Light cannot reach the end of it.

Byleth urges Claude to come closer to the edge. She used to be the one carrying the light, but she figured that by cramming a torch inside his hands, he wouldn’t be tempted to fight. He approaches and extends his arm over the ravine, trying to survey the environment.

“I don’t think it gets any better,” he says, squinting.

Byleth leans a little over the hole in turn, as if it could make any difference. “I don’t see the end of it either,” she says. “But maybe the road is back right after where our light cannot reach.”

Claude shakes his head. “Without knowing, it’s too dangerous to move forward. Imagine if even the ledge disappears, and we are blocked there with monsters on our heels…” He grimaces at the thought. “We need to find another way.”

A screech in the distance startles them both and they freeze on the spot, breathing short and ears alert, trying to evaluate the threat.

Byleth breaks the silence when it’s clear there’s no immediate danger. “All right. So, you need to take a break to evaluate the situation and find another path, correct?”

Claude smiles sheepishly in response. He likes it when people trust his judgement—not that it is a common occurrence. _This_ is a change in her attitude he can get behind.

They enter the building on their right. These troglodytic houses sure are convenient: even if the entrance is exposed, for wooden doors don’t survive the passage of time all that well, the rooms more on the back are isolated enough they can make for a decent place to rest—provided monsters aren’t already using them as nests.

Ever since they went astray the designated itinerary, the houses they are visiting have had a different atmosphere than the ones they could encounter on the higher levels. Looters never set a foot in there and so, if everything perishable turned to dust long ago, furniture and various items have stayed still, as if frozen in time.

Claude only believes in what he can see with his own two eyes. This is why he isn’t afraid of ghosts, of demons or of djinn. But the scenery in these houses is eerie, every single object still in place, as if the inhabitants were still there a second before Byleth and him crossed their doorsteps. It’s as if they suddenly vanished into thin air. The first time they set a foot in one of these houses, his blood froze on the spot. Something happened in this city. What, exactly, he has some ideas, but he isn’t certain yet. All he knows is that it was something terrible.

He eyes at Byleth, who’s digging through the furniture, probably looking for an object that could be of use. He wonders if she also feels the dread floating in the air. There are multiple objects lying around that Claude saw in books or that he encountered in some antique stores; others he never heard of before. All are completely inanimate, though, with no apparent function nor utility, the secret of their operation long forgotten. When they have enough time to do so, he likes to write about them in his diary and he sketches their shapes hastily. When they are small enough, he crams them into his bag when he’s far away from Byleth’s inquisitive eyes. He’s not sure she’d scold him for that, but he cannot help it: she’ll forever be a teacher in his eyes, and there is something transgressive about the act.

Byleth turns back to him and shows him a strange item.

“Look!”

The object she’s proudly displaying has the size of an egg. It’s a round, white sphere, divided into various segments, much like the slices of a fruit. Byleth is hanging it by a silver chain, that is attached right at the top of it.

“Look,” she continues, “if I put it on a surface, it’s opening.”

She shows him so, resting the globe on the palm of her hand. The segments separate slowly from each other, revealing a core at the centre. “Do you know what it could be?” she asks him.

Claude leans and scratches his head. “I never saw anything like that in my life,” he says. “Probably just jewellery… Or a censer of some sort.”

“It could be useful…” Byleth muses, her eyes fixated on the object. She looks captivated by it.

Maybe she has more of a looter in her than he assumed, after all. “I highly doubt so…”

She pouts a little in response, and he tries to dissimulate how cocky he feels at her taking his bait. “We never know…” she says.

Claude grins, this time. “Byleth… If you want to take it, just do it.”

“Uh…? No, it’s not—”

“It’d look pretty around your neck,” he teases.

The argument seems to convince her. She locks the chain around her neck and the globe rests perfectly between her breasts.

Claude wanders around the room, Byleth still too captivated by her new pendent to really contribute to the mission. He stops in front of a wall.

“I found our way out,” he says.

Startled, Byleth trots to his side. “Where?”

He rests a hand against the cool surface. “Look. It’s made of bricks. It means there’s a hole on the other side.”

He knocks on one brick to prove his point. It sounds hollow. “It looks like this cavity was already there,” he explains. “They just added windows and polished the surfaces… And built this wall to divide the structure into several houses.”

“Are you suggesting we go through that wall…?”

“Yes. This way we can progress from one home to another until the outside is less … hostile. There should be houses like this one all along this cave. We can just sneak out through a window when we are past that hole.”

“I must say it sounds reasonable”—it really isn’t—“But… It’s still a wall.”

“Don’t worry about it. I know how to deal with these.”

“Really?”

“Really. I dug my own secret passage in my bedroom, you know.”

Byleth ruminates, probably trying to remember what his room looked like in the dormitories. “In Almyra?” she asks.

He nods. “In Almyra.”

Byleth rests a hand under her chin and the pendent around her neck jiggles at the motion.

“I trust your judgement,” she concludes after a while.

 _Good to know_ , Claude keeps to himself.

He scratches the mortar between the bricks with his nails and takes good notice of how crumbly it is.

“Give me your dagger,” he asks Byleth. She executes herself immediately and he smiles to himself, remembering how much of a hassle that simple request used to be. He’s still unsure about what exactly compelled her to suddenly have faith in him—was it his words or his actions? But he obtained what he wanted, in the end, so focusing on the _why_ and the _how_ isn’t a priority.

As he suspected, a blade isn’t enough to remove the mortar at a reasonable speed. He looks over his shoulder to check on Byleth, but she’s far enough he cannot spot much more than the dim light of her lamp reflected on the wall of the room next door. He focuses and, slowly, he casts his magic.

Enchanted weapons are a subject he always took great interest in, perhaps because he used to wield Failnaught, and the bow sometimes seemed akin to the enchantment of a blade. It’s a common and simple practice in Morfis albeit a dangerous one. All you have to do is cast your magic as you would to create a spell. But instead of aiming at launching it in front of you, you channel it into the object you are holding—in this case, Byleth’s dagger. The danger comes from the fact that it’s really easy to just pour all your energy into the weapon without noticing it.

The metal vibrates in front of him, loaded with energy. When it touches the wall, the mortar evaporates with no much more than a sore smell and a light smoke. Claude outlines the brick carefully and, when he’s done, he pushes on it. The stone resists a bit at first, but with persistence, it finally gives way and falls unceremoniously on the other side of the wall.

Claude chuckles; it was even easier than expected.

He hears Byleth re-entering the room behind him, probably startled by his laugh. She wouldn’t condone his method, he knows, and so he casts his magic into the dagger again, little by little and not enough for her to notice the energy floating in the air, and he goes back to work. Like with the previous brick, the second one easily falls on the other side of the wall when he pushes on it. He watches through the new gap he created.

“All clear,” he says to Byleth. He coughs and swallows the blood.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

“Just the dust,” he lies. He pushes on another brick, and another one, until there’s enough space for them to crawl through the wall.

“Told you I was good at it,” he says.

When they are both on the other side, Byleth checks the outside through a window. 

“There is still no road,” she says. “But we are getting close. If this house is like the last one, then one more wall and we should reach the other side. Sorry, Claude, maybe this time I can do it—

“Claude?”

 _Ah… This is not good_ , Claude thinks. His head is spinning so much he fell on his knees without noticing it. His eardrums are ringing now, and if it’s hard to really tell with the lack of light, he’s certain his vision is getting hazier and hazier by the second. Byleth rushes to his side.

_Cla … laud … de …_

Her voice is muffled and distant. He feels her hand rested on his back. She’s right there, a frail barrier standing between him and unconsciousness.

“I’m fine,” he manages to murmur.

He really isn’t, and he almost faints. Byleth hands him over a flask of water and she forces him to drink. After a minute, he slowly starts feeling better.

“The plan isn’t for you to die stupidly,” Byleth says when he sits straight and catches his breath. He feels something running out of his nose, and he realises it’s blood.

“It isn’t,” he repeats, and he sniffles. He’s extenuated but he still takes good notice of how Byleth looks pretty, leaned like that above him, her big eyes full of worry and her hair circled by a halo of light. Is it what it was like for Edelgard as well? For all the Black Eagles? When Byleth watched over them… 

_Keep your cool, Khalid_ , he orders to himself. “You will need me in the library,” he says. 

“It’s … not about that,” Byleth answers, shaking her head slowly.

_Crap. She is weird again._

“I don’t want anything bad happening to you,” she continues, her voice lower and lower.

“I see,” Claude simply adds. 

Some would say that duping others was like a second nature to him and in a certain capacity, it was true. After all, that’s how he proceeded with things his whole life. But it didn’t mean it was an easy task and, after a while, it started to weight on his conscience. 

It truly began with the Golden Deer. They weren’t like Judith, whom, he knew, regardless of her affection for him, was friendly out of interest—he was the heir of the Alliance and she the head of a dying House. He’d promised things to the Golden Deer as well, of course, tried to help them to slowly gain their trust. But nothing he could offer them, no title, no money could have bought the sort of devotion they developed for him. It was true, genuine love, he came to realise on the day they spilled their blood for him.

Yes, he needs to keep his cool, to make sure his conscience doesn’t go in the way. His perfect plan leaves no place for remorse. He’s certain that Byleth will never follow him past the library out of affect alone. No one in their right mind would. Byleth cares about him because it’s in her nature. But it doesn’t make her stupid nor gullible. She spared his life in Derdriu, yes, but she still gave him a good taste of her sword beforehand. To this day, when he looks at his body, he still thinks of his scars as a warning.

 _He_ is the weakest link in this equation, not her. His moral sense is. And when she seems to care about him like that… It gets harder and harder on him to manipulate her.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

They had built the library in the biggest among the many caves of the citadel, right on top of the point where the river that flowed through the city finally plunged back into the ground. There was a logic behind that choice, for the library was meant to be more than just that: it was an archive, a place where the people of Mu stocked the knowledge they had accumulated over centuries of exploration and discoveries. From this place, many paths led to other parts of the city, most of them left unexplored and, it was assumed, to other exits.

The building in itself is massive: a rectangular shape over fifty metres in height with a dome at the top. Born from the genius of this people and from their forgotten technology, books would tell you it was craved entirely out of one single block of a black rock never found anywhere else on the planet. A marvel of architecture.

For Byleth and her light-deprived eyes, though, all this splendour is entirely lost, and the encounter only takes the shape of a dark, metallic door engraved with complex symbols.

“Looks like we made it,” Claude says.

Byleth catches her breath. Save for the usual monsters, everything went smoothly after they left the room with the canyon. She’s tempted to think it was all way easier than what she expected, but knowing they’ve reached their goal, her brain is suddenly making her aware of her exhaustion, of the pain in her hands and of the filth all over her.

Claude opens the door unceremoniously and it gives way without making a sound. Once he is sure they are both inside he closes it behind them, and the echo it makes as it bangs immediately gives Byleth a good idea of the size of the room.

The air is dusty and rich with the smell of paper. Something crunches beneath her feet as she starts walking, and when she aims her torch at the ground, she realises she stepped on a book. On several of them, actually. They are scattered all around the place.

“Shit…!” she lets out, frightened she might have destroyed an important piece of work.

“Don’t worry,” Claude says, tapping on her shoulder. “They are probably unusable. Plus, it’s not like you’ll be out of content to read…”

He raises his arm and points at something in the dark. Byleth squints and what was nothing more than shadows slowly turn into rows and rows of bookshelves, organised in a circle around an altar. They go up to the roof as far as the eye can see to disappear into the darkness.

“That’s…” she lets out in a breath. “How many of them are there…?”

“Thousands and thousands,” Claude continues, pointing her at different directions. “Millions maybe. Enough knowledge for a lifetime.”

The excitement is palpable as Byleth now walks toward the shelves, trying to see how deep they go. In the dark where she cannot perceive much farther away than the few metres lit up by her torch, the room looks infinite. Her steps echo against the walls. She spots an old blanket in a corner, with what looks like the remains of a fire.

“A campsite,” she says. “I guess it makes sense people would stay there for a while.” _And it’s safe_ , she adds to herself, thinking about the metallic door they closed behind them. No monster can enter there.

“The books are fairly well preserved,” Claude says, brushing a cover with the tip of his fingers. “But they deteriorate quickly under the sunlight. You cannot exactly take them outside.”

“What about yours…?”

“They were among the most recent ones, and several precautions were needed. Surely you noticed how I kept the windows occulted at my place,” he explains. “But if you really want all this information out of here, it’s better to copy it manually. So many of mine also are just that: copies.”

“To copy books that you cannot understand…” Byleth muses.

“And what other alternatives are there, really?” Claude says. “Imagine staying there alone for so long… You would turn crazy.”

Byleth blinks. Claude is right. Even with him—even surrounded by other people—she would turn mad if she were to spend days mindlessly reading books there, with a small fire as her only light source and surrounded by so much knowledge, living in fear she’d miss the one she really needs by an inch. Just getting there took a serious toll on her psyche. How many days has it been? A week? Probably more…

A few minutes ago, when they entered the place, she felt so hopeful for the first time in so long. Now, it’s like she’s out of air. The task is immense; she is insignificant.

“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” she says.

“Shh.” Claude puts a finger across his lips. “Just watch.”

He moves to the altar at the centre of the room. It’s a platform, elevated from the rest of the floor by a few steps. In the middle of it, there’s a cylinder that reaches his hip. Claude carefully places his hand on the dome engraved on the surface. He turns his head upward and for a moment, Byleth watches in wonder. Then, slowly, a low hum is heard.

Claude’s mouth opens a little as the dome lights up. In the dark, points of light appear one after another. They glow weakly, like a thousand fireflies, and Byleth watches in awe as more and more of them light up, covering the bookshelves, the walls, and the ceiling.

“Is this how they lit up the place…” she asks aloud.

“Yes … and no,” Claude says. “This, right now, is more of an indexing system. Do you see the patterns on each shelf? They aren’t random. Each of them designates a category. The rest is just ornamental.”

He points at a shelf on his right. “Chemistry.” One next to Byleth. “Alchemy.” One behind him. “Fauna.”

She walks in circles, following his finger.

“You get the idea,” he adds, a cocky smile painted on his lips.

Byleth stops for a moment. None of this appeared on the documents he gave her. No mention whatsoever of this information that should have been important enough to figure somewhere.

“You already went there before, didn’t you?” she says. There is no accusation in her voice. Deep down, she always suspected it.

“I did,” Claude simply says. He approaches her close enough she can see the sincerity deep inside his eyes. “And I will answer your questions, I promise,” he continues. “But first… Look above you.”

She does as he says, and for a second, she doesn’t understand where he is coming from. Thanks to the lights, she can now see how far up the ceiling goes. But it’s only lights… Or is it?

With time, she starts recognising some patterns. It’s not that they repeat themselves or that they form geometric shapes; they simply look oddly familiar. It clicks when she sees three of them, perfectly aligned. Orion’s Belt.

“Constellations,” she whispers. She swiftly turns her head back to Claude. “What does this mean?”

His eyes are brilliant under the dim light.

“Amazing, isn’t it…? I suppose the people who lived there, thousands of years ago… At the end of the day, they were like you and me… Underground, in Fódlan or in Almyra… Centuries, beliefs and cultures separate us and yet, we’ve always all been looking at the same sky.”

They stay there, side by side, for long minutes, heads turned to the fake celestial vault that got lit up by that strange technology Claude activated. Not a sound but the low hum of the lights is heard.

“I went here last year,” Claude says after a while, breaking the silence. “I just wanted to study some books, but when I touched the altar, it lit up the whole structure. It was exhilarating… So, I decided to stay there for a while, to try to understand the secret of this place.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before...?”

“I doubt you would have followed me. I figured it would make me too suspicious.”

“Mmh…”

“So, now we can stay here for as long as needed. And I will be able to find and decipher for you whatever book might help you. Although, I admit it will still be a long way before I can truly understand what’s written there…” He scratches the back of his head awkwardly.

Speechless, Byleth observes him. If she still had any doubt about him, then his words just dissipated them for good. She always knew he was a clever one, but she’d never suspected he was capable of doing that much, and much less of being so sweet.

She bites the inside of her cheek as she looks at him and her eyes stop on his collar. He’s always been covered up from head to toes outside, but in the natural heat of Mu’s environment he got rid of many of his layers and he only wears a light undershirt that lets his collarbones appear. Sweat gleams over his body and over the red, tender skin of his scars.

“Why…” she murmurs. “Why are you still so kind to me...?”

He sighs, as if she just ruined a moment. “It was part of our deal.”

 _But you never knew about the specifics!_ she screams inside her head, _You never asked me why…!_

And if he knew … if he knew…

“The information I’m looking for,” she says, a knot forming in her throat as if trying to silence her, “it’s … it’s for Edelgard. It’s to save Edelgard’s life.”

Claude’s pupils widen and he blinks, one, two times, processing the new information.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” she says.

“It doesn’t change anything.” His voice is neutral.

“But she … she is…”

“What? My enemy? That again? It’s been eight years, Byleth. If you feel that bad about it, why did you follow me in the first place?”

She has to tell him now, what she didn’t manage to say during their last night in Erinys. She takes a deep breath.

“I travelled with you because … because I wanted you nearby to make you pay for what you did…” She shakes her head. “No, for what I _thought you did_ at the Locket. Ever since we reunited, I’ve felt terrible. It was the only answer I had to explain this uneasiness. That you were my enemy. A threat.”

Claude says nothing, his mouth a straight line. He nods slowly, urging her to continue.

“But one day… I didn’t mean to look… But I saw your body and I … I understood that it wasn’t that I hated you.” She looks at him in the eyes and moves a hand to his arm. Claude almost shudders at the sensation. “You looked so … so frail … broken … and so sad… And it is all my fault, isn’t it…? I don’t hate you I just… I feel terrible about what I inflicted to you.”

She gulps one last time, almost audibly. She’s out of air, but it feels as if a terrible weight is suddenly lifted from her shoulders.

She’s grown accustomed to all the faces Claude makes. When he’s annoyed, grumpy, tired or caustic. When he’s acting cocky and proud. If she concentrates enough and channels her memories from nearly fifteen years ago, she can almost remember exactly his happy smiles and his laughing face. But the sort of expression painted on Claude’s face right now is like nothing she has ever witnessed before. He’s more than angry; he is fulminating.

“So, this is what it’s all about,” he says, his eyes dark. “You are really pissing me off, you know that?”

He pushes her hand away. “Is this also the reason why you tried to sleep with me? Because I inspired you _pity_?”

Pity. He almost spat the word. Byleth opens her mouth to say something, but once again the words don’t come out. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like tha—”

“Stop excusing yourself!” Claude shouts. “Accept responsibility, for once!”

His unexpected anger fuels her own, and also a multitude of other negative and powerful emotions, all rushing to her brain. Shame, pain, humiliation, incomprehension…

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” she retorts, shouting back at him. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I want to make amends! I want to help you!”

“Then how about you stop lying to yourself, for a start?” Claude gushes with a petty and poisonous voice. “You are not feeling bad for me, you are feeling bad for yourself. And you’ve always been a bit weird, haven’t you? With zero grasp whatsoever on your emotions… And it’s a good pretext to just… Trample all over people’s feelings. It’s all you’ve been doing since we met, actually. First I’m a liar, a poisoner, a warmonger; and now I guess I’m something to be pitied instead! Whatever helps you feel good, right? But it’s not my job to help you with your feelings, do you understand? What are you expecting from me? Absolution? If it’s to treat me like that… Then don’t bother at all.”

He breathes heavily as if he’d just run a marathon. His eyes are full of fury. She never saw him like that, not even on the battlefield. Somehow, she didn’t even imagine he could look like that.

“It’s just…” she whispers with a sob in her voice, “I cannot understand why you don’t hate me. If it had been me, I … I would have made you pay. I would have killed you…!”

Claude almost says something, but then he pauses, visibly considering his options. In the end, he squints and he takes a deep breath. He smiles sadly.

“Listen…” he says with a much more controlled voice. “Do you want to know why I don’t hate you…?”

Byleth nods slowly.

“It’s simply because I know that under other circumstances, it’s at Edelgard’s neck that your blade would have been pointed.”

“Do you really believe so…?” A reality in which she’d fight Edelgard… It’s not one she can envision. But is he wrong…? Her feelings for Edelgard… Despite their love, despite their bond… She cannot deny that they have been ambivalent, as of late. No. They have been for years. Ever since Jeritza left…

“Everyone has something to fight for,” Claude continues. “It is true for Edelgard, for you, and for me as well. That’s the one thing we all have in common, our resolve.”

“Resolve?”

“Yes. As long as you had resolve, then I could believe that none of this was in vain. Because had you picked me instead of Edelgard… Maybe I would have done the same.” He shakes his head. “I’m not a saint either, you know,” he whispers. “Under the right circumstances, everyone can become a monster. But when you act like that, when you lack the resolve to look at your actions and to accept responsibilities for them… It’s simply insulting. For me. For Edelgard. For you. For everyone. You have more agenda than that, don’t you?”

Claude looks at his feet to dissimulate the immense sadness in his eyes as he presses on.

“You know, the truth is … I … I wish you’d died at Garreg Mach. Every single day since the fall of the Monastery, for five years, I prayed whatever gods would listen to me that you would never show up again. Everyone knew where your allegiance lay, and it would have made my life so much easier…! But you came back, and I lost everything. Yet, I am the one who chose to take the head of the Alliance when Gloucester wanted the job. I am the one who decided to stay and protect Derdriu when it would have been much safer to just fly away. And I am the one who chose to trust Edelgard, to trust _you_ , to make Fódlan a better place, so that at least their deaths wouldn’t be in vain.”

He lets out a deep sigh. “This is why I cannot hate you,” he concludes. “Hating you goes against everything I ever stood for. But that guilt that you have… It is your fight, and yours alone to face, Byleth.”

Byleth clenches her teeth. Why is Claude, of all people, pronouncing the words she always needed to hear? “Then,” she says, “will you let me … help you? I’m not sure this is the answer … but it’s the only one I can find for now.”

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

His initial plan was kinder, perhaps. All he had to do was to lie to her, stay a few days in the library and pretend he’d found a document telling them the answers she was looking for were somewhere down below. He would have gone there with her, lower and lower still, to find what _he_ was truly after. It would have benefited them both, eventually, and this would have spared them much suffering. She would have never known the truth, and it would have never mattered. In the end, this has always been the silver lining. Lies and manipulation and doubt and remorse… None of them ever mattered as long as everything ended up being all right.

But she opened her heart to him, and Claude couldn’t help it anymore: Byleth’s feelings hit too close to home. He understands her. He relates to her. And perhaps, if life had taken another turn, if he still were the young, hopeful boy he used to be, he would have taken her hand and tried to help her out. Perhaps he would have held her close to his chest and told her heartfelt words. That there was hope for her, that together, they could find a new meaning in life and that there was no point in delving on the past.

Part of Claude wants to tell her these words, but he knows well enough they will only get in the way of his own objective—and this is inconceivable. So, instead, he remembers what Nahkt told him; that only love could push someone to follow him, and he thinks about how his friend forgot about another powerful feeling.

Guilt.

Claude squints and he tries to read Byleth’s expression. They went this far. He’s not ready to stop this close to his goals. And screw the implications.

He moves a hand to her cheek and, slowly, he rearranges a lock of hair behind her ear. Much like him, she looks absolutely filthy, covered in sweat, dust, and other organic matter he’d rather not think about.

Old habits die hard and so he cannot help it: the words flow out of his lips like poison. “Forget about tending to my wounds…” he murmurs with a deep voice, “or about sleeping with me.” 

Byleth is slowly blushing. She looks very endearing like that, but her reaction also makes him feel bad. He finds it hard to look at her in the eyes now, so he focuses on her lips instead. It feels so wrong to use this weapon against her.

“Come with me,” he says anyway.

“Uh?”

“You heard me,” he whispers when she adds no more than that. “Come with me. To the bottom of Mu. You said you wanted to help, didn’t you…? Then forget about Edelgard and come with me. Right now, this is what I want more than anything else in the world.”

There is a clear hesitation in her eyes at first, and Claude wonders if Byleth will ever pick him. Truth to be told, it’s not like he ever asked her as much in the past. On the day they first met, Edelgard and Dimitri were all over her, boasting about their accomplishments and their glorious nations. Dimitri followed her like a lovesick puppy, unable to understand that from the get-go Byleth only had eyes for Edelgard. And Claude, Claude didn’t really care about her, then. She was just another mercenary, another person who’d crossed his road and who would probably disappear from his life a year later without making much of a difference. She hadn’t picked him, after all.

But this time, after long minutes, Byleth nods. “I’ll go with you.”

Of all the reasons Byleth could have had to pick him, he wishes guilt had not been the answer. It is a powerful tool, he knows, for he has also been crushed by it for many years.

Every morning since the end of the war, he’s been waking up looking for a solution, but all he ever found were dead ends. No hatred, no violence, no pardon and no love could ever make the guilt of leading his friends to their death go away. And after years and years spent running in circles, he only reached one definite conclusion: that it is hard to heal when the only person who can truly forgive you, is yourself.

With Byleth by his side, he can finally reach his goals, and it doesn’t erase the remorse inside his heart, so he tries to ignore it.

 _It won’t be like the last time_ , he convinces himself as he looks at her face full of doubt. _This time no one will get hurt by my fault. She has the blood of a goddess._ _And a goddess cannot die._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just think Claude should be allowed to be a little asshole-ish. As a treat.
> 
> I finally put a chapter count to prevent myself from changing things around now that I'm nearing the end... Maybe 50-60% of the rest is already written but I won't pretend my process is anything but chaotic, so I've kept changing my mind ever since I published the first chapter haha
> 
> Thank you for reading, as always, and I'll see you in two weeks :)


	9. Dragon Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, this ended up much, much longer than anticipated.
> 
> It's plot time.

The ball was probably the most anticipated event of the year. Ever since the beginning of the month, the topic had been on everyone’s lips, along with dresses, perfumes, suits and make-up.

Byleth missed the beginning of the event. She spent long minutes inside her room, looking at herself in the mirror. Dorothea had helped her to dress up and she even proposed her some of her outfits, but Byleth had refused. She opted instead for the more convenient and modest uniform they’d given her at the start of the year, but that she never had bothered wearing before. It was a formal attire, a far cry from what she was used to wear: a simple black jacket with gold embroidery and a long, matching skirt that went far down to her ankles. She arranged her hair simply with a pink headband and decided it would do.

When she entered the vestibule that they had transformed into a ballroom, she felt like a fish thrown on the ground. Everyone was dressed elegantly, commoners, nobles and teachers alike, their clothes made of rich fabric with bright colours, fancy materials and ribbons. Some were dancing, but most of them were watching as Edelgard and Dimitri waltzed in the centre of the room.

Edelgard looked like a bird, her long, draped red dress sweeping the floor with every step she was making. Her hair arranged into a crown and her lips painted crimson, she looked more than her age, but the slight blush of embarrassment on her cheeks as the waltz with her partner continued betrayed her ingenuousness. In her dress, she looked regal, more of a lady than a child, enticing and elegant, but she had made sure to show no skin whatsoever, wearing long, white gloves around her arms and a bolero on her shoulders.

Next to her stood Dimitri, more princely than ever. He was not as agile as Edelgard, trying his best not to crush his partner—or maybe he simply didn’t want to touch her too much. Faerghusian attires were more sober than the decadence shown in the Empire, and his suit was more akin to a military uniform than something strictly reserved for special occasions such as this one. Byleth had heard about his accomplishments during the war, but it still surprised her to see the medals proudly displayed on his chest. There was something strange about seeing him acting like that, confident and proud, when Dimitri was usually a discreet man. This look was more fitting of someone like Claude… And where was Claude, anyway…?

Unlike his comrades, the young man seemed to have found no joy in dancing; instead he was staying near the buffet with Raphael and Sylvain, engulfing petit fours and mixing his beverage with the wine that Sylvain was trying to dissimulate as well as he could between his legs and the buffet table. Much to Byleth’s surprise, Claude hadn’t put through the extra effort of dressing up that even people like Marianne or Bernadetta had. Much like her, all he was wearing was the formal, dull outfit given by the Academy on the day he had enrolled. A black uniform, not much different from what he was wearing all year long, if not for the adjusted pants and the distinct lack of a yellow cape. Byleth shrugged. She had stopped trying to understand the Leicester Alliance’s heir long ago. Truth to be told, she found him more and more insistent, lately, and she was outright trying to avoid him.

She considered her options. Save for Manuela, who obviously also had a taste of Sylvain’s wine, all the professors and Seteth had seen her enter the ballroom. She could probably leave, now. Her duty was done and no one would blame her. She had much to do, like training or thinking hard about whether it was a good idea to climb the Goddess Tower.

However, whatever plans she had in mind were compromised when Claude’s eyes found her. She had not been discreet enough, apparently. The young man swallowed his last petit four and walked towards her energetically. Byleth had no time to protest, and part of her knew it would have been hopeless anyway. When Claude reached her, he bowed down dramatically, shameless, and then he winked at her and grabbed her hand to lead her on the dancefloor before she could even mutter a single word.

When they settled in the middle of the room and as Claude started to lead her, she whispered to him that she didn’t know how to dance, her eyes wandering to Edelgard and Dimitri once again, who were now sharing a waltz under the cheers of the crowd. Claude told her that he had no idea about how to dance properly either and that it made them the best pair possible, for no one would ever be able to tell which one of them was ruining the performance. He stepped on her toes and she bumped into him, and when the crowd cheered more in response, she realised they were actually rooting for _her_.

During a pirouette that was a tad too energetic, her eyes met Edelgard’s for a second, before Claude brought her back to him. Observing the others, Byleth concluded that Claude’s posture was anything but correct, for one of his hands had wandered to an improper place: her waist. He pulled her closer still, embolden by the spectators or maybe just by the alcohol, and Byleth could almost feel the burning gaze of Edelgard imprinted on her back. She turned dark eyes to her cheeky partner in a vain effort to scold him in silence, and Claude looked back at her. He seemed much different from usual, and he also _felt_ different, outside of his puffy clothes and his ornaments and masquerades, a bright smile painted on his lips and his cheeks red from the effort.

Another measure, and the music stopped.

Many other dances followed that night, and then others, long after they had all grown out of their uniforms and of their naiveté. Ferdinand taught Byleth the correct steps and postures to adopt, and Dorothea found her gorgeous dresses adapted to the circumstances. The ballets that followed, year after year, ones where Byleth would dance freely with her friends and with an Edelgard who had found the strength to show her scarred skin, they eventually all replaced that awkward night in Garreg Mach inside her memories. With enough pretence and make-up, Byleth could believe she belonged among them; among the elegant, unbreakable, victorious Black Eagles. With enough wine and smiles, she could believe she wasn’t that lonely, after all, when the music stopped and they all came back home, leaving her alone in her big, empty house.

Wasn’t it what she always wanted, after all? To follow Edelgard? To fight for her? To build a future with her? Deep inside her heart, she knew it to be the truth—her truth. But some nights were harder than others and during those, the memory of her time in the Academy would insinuate itself into her mind, and with it a thousand doubts and questions.

Maybe she should have left at the end of the war; accept Jeritza’s offer and fly away with him.

_And then what?_

Jeritza had lost so much during the war, including perhaps his last shred of sanity. He understood her feelings better than anyone else. He never shied away from his sins… No, from _their_ sins. But Jeritza had no plans and no future. Leaving with him, she would have become nothing more than the accomplice of a murderer. A fugitive.

So, during these sleepless nights, left all by herself, Byleth would let her thoughts wander to this dangerous place, to the idea that she truly didn’t belong with any of them anymore and worse, that she maybe never had. Edelgard had reached her goals and, in an unexpected way, it felt like the finish line had also marked the end of her own path.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

She looks at the celestial vault, just as she has done so many times before. The stars are nothing more than dots painted by the people who built this extraordinary place, but they seem real enough. Hour after hour, their brilliance has diminished, slowly but surely, to the point where she can barely make them out anymore. She looks back at the book opened on her laps. It’s a star atlas, or so Claude pretended. This is how he has managed to decipher this language; he had explained. She didn’t really understand how. When she asked him questions, he answered with a certain passion in the voice and even if most of the words or concepts coming out of his mouth were as nebulous as ever, she still listened attentively. For her, it’s nothing more than scribbles. She closes her eyes for a moment and lets her thoughts wander to him.

They had shouted and screamed at each other and after that, the atmosphere was left heavy and awkward between them. But it didn’t last and this time around, no ill, unknown feeling came out of it, if not the realisation she was on the contrary more determined than ever to take the path she had chosen to follow.

They decided to stay another day at the library, more to rest properly than to actually do research. Byleth skimmed through books mindlessly, barely thinking about the reason why she had come here in the first place. She didn’t even think about bringing up the subject to Claude. He probably would have helped her, but it was an unwritten rule she had established for herself: if she were to follow Claude, then Edelgard had to be out of the equation entirely.

The only question she still has left, the only other thing she didn’t ask, is what exactly it is that Claude is after. But the answer to this question is also implicit. They both know what is waiting for them at the bottom of Mu. The fear of death looming beyond this lightless horizon is strangely not as overbearing as before. A dreadful part of her brain knows that it is only fair. They stole Claude’s life. And Edelgard already got what she wanted, didn’t she? She was ready to die the last time they saw each other… Byleth’s quest has never been more than a caprice in which Edelgard had no say.

“Are you ready?”

Claude leans over her right shoulder, hair falling in front of his eyes in the process.

Byleth shakes her head slowly and closes the atlas. “I still don’t understand how you did it…”

“Hehe… Simply years and years of hard work, I guess.”

She stands up and gives a look at their bags, all properly arranged near the remains of the fire they lit earlier. They are leaving many things behind, mostly clothes and books, all piled up against a shelf. Claude said maps would be useless from now on because no one went that far down in the city. She saw him discarding them on the pile, and it felt like taking one more step towards the end of her world. She holds the atlas close to her chest.

“You can keep it if you want,” Claude says.

“What?”

“The book.”

Byleth looks at the cover. She shakes her head. “It will be better here.”

What use could it possibly have anyway if they are never coming back?

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Leaving the library feels like leaving home. It really was only a day in there, but it has been almost enough for them to forget how dreadful the environment outside truly is. They make their way slowly, Claude going first, until they reach the only stairs going down in the whole room.

It’s different from the ones they have taken before. The steps are high and wide, and the structure is imposing. As they go down, the natural walls of the cave slowly turn into an artificial cavity much similar to what they saw on the first levels of the city, only much bigger in scale. It takes them long minutes to finally see the end of it.

“Do you feel it too, Byleth?” Claude asks when they reach the bottom of the stairs. They have kept quiet so far, in awe with the scale of the place and slightly disturbed by the many statues decorating the way—all representing the same entity; all headless.

Byleth squints and calm her breathing. “Something is watching us,” she murmurs. “It has been awfully quiet…”

“Let’s continue and keep our eyes wide open,” Claude murmurs back. With his hand, he urges her to keep walking. Maybe they can trick their stalker this way.

The air is hot and almost suffocating. Byleth undoes the collar of her shirt lazily to breathe better. She’s afraid the temperature will affect her concentration.

“Such a furnace…” Claude says, sweeping sweat off his brow. He surveys their environment, eyes and ears acute, checking on any suspect noise.

That’s when he sees it; a shadow on the wall on their left. He keeps walking pretending otherwise, but with his fingers, he alerts Byleth. Her pupils widen when she sees the _thing_ , but she doesn’t stop progressing either. It looks like the silhouette of a gargoyle, but without wings. It is entirely black and she realises it would probably mesh with the environment had the walls on this level not been artificial and lighter than the one in the caves.

“I wonder if it’s been following us for a long time,” she murmurs.

“I get what you’re saying,” Claude says, obviously following the same reasoning as her, “but we would have noticed. Its presence is too pronounced.”

It indeed is. Byleth feels sweat dripping down her back and between her breasts, and she knows it’s not only because of the heat. The thing moves swiftly, pinned to the wall like a lizard, at a distance that looks safe enough from them—but is it?

“We should kill it,” Byleth states. She doesn’t like it at all. If it can crawl on a vertical surface like that, who’s to say it cannot go on the ceiling and simply drop on them? Or just jump from where it is and go for a kill?

In front of her, Claude stops walking. The creature immediately stops moving as well, and it turns its head to them—or at least it looks so, because it’s nothing more than a dark shape.

“Shoot it down,” Claude hisses between his teeth.

Without saying a word, Byleth reaches for the bow tied to her back—the one she won for Claude—and then for an arrow inside her quiver.

She doesn’t dare letting the creature out of her field of vision if only for a second. It seems to move when she does as little as blinking. She draws the bow and tries to concentrate. The target is far away, for the room is huge, and it’s really hard to evaluate distances with precision when there’s so little light.

She feels Claude standing right next to her.

“Can you move out, please?” she whispers to him, adjusting her aim. “You are distracting me.”

Claude doesn’t listen and leans over her shoulder instead.

“I may have a numb arm,” he says, “but I can promise you I’m still the best damn shot on this entire continent.”

There is enough pride and cockiness in his voice for Byleth to believe him.

“You are aiming too low,” he whispers. “Aim about ten degrees higher. Then slightly more to the right. Here.”

A part of her wants to protest; she’s clearly aiming at the wall right now. Another part remembers distinctively the way Claude used to nock arrows from a wyvern’s back and while it was a long time ago, she can believe he never got any less brilliant at the exercise. She obeys him.

“Take a deep breath… Block… And shoot.”

She releases the arrow, and it hisses as it rips through the air. Alerted by the noise, the target moves swiftly in response at an unfathomable speed. However, much like Claude apparently predicted it, it goes to the right, exactly where it needed to be for the arrow to reach it in the head. The creature shrieks and falls on the ground.

Byleth draws a breath. Claude really didn’t lie about his good eye. It would have been an impossible shot for her alone.

Claude says nothing, but he immediately starts moving to the corpse to have a better look at it. He barely makes two steps that a gruesome sound is heard. He stops on track and raises his torch after glancing quickly at Byleth. They see the walls slowly turning black, as if a sticky, thick liquid was falling down from the ceiling and dripping along the walls. But quickly, they realise it is not liquid at all. It’s alive, it’s other creatures similar to the one they just shot down, moving like a tide, in unison, and when then reach the ground, they fly to the body to feast on it.

Claude almost drops his torch. “What—”

Byleth grabs his wrist. “Let’s get out of here!”

She runs, holding him tight, and she barely sees where she is putting her feet but thankfully there seems to be only one path to exit this room.

“Have you ever seen something like that before?” Byleth asks, breathless as they keep on running.

Claude squints and turns his head behind him. “Never. Never read about them before either. The more distance we can put between us, the happier I’ll become. They creep me out.”

Byleth eyes him. Despite it all, he looks intrigued. She tightens her grip.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The dreadful presence disappears as they keep running, and after a while it’s enough for them to consider they aren’t being followed anymore. Under other circumstances, Byleth would be more cautious than that, you are never too prudent, after all, but there is only so much they can do in this environment. They have no map anymore, but Claude walks as if he knows exactly where he is going. He asked her to keep silent so he can hear something.

They finally reach a gate. It is impressive in size, with statues disposed on each side. Byleth tries to see the heads at the top of them, but they are too tall and simply disappear in the darkness. Upon inspection, it looks like the gate can be closed, although at the moment, it is wide open. As Byleth studies the structure, her light catches something unusual rested against the stone. A skeleton. A human one.

Taken by surprise, she almost screams. Alerted by the sound, Claude moves to her side.

He doesn’t seem shocked by the vision, but only a bit sad. He crouches near the corpse and his torch sheds light on other dead bodies hidden in the darkness behind it. He closes his eyes, perhaps to pray, Byleth thinks, perhaps just to focus.

“At least we know where all these monsters are coming from,” he says as he stands up. “That gate used to be closed.”

“Uh?”

He looks at her and he seems more excited than truly preoccupied.

“This is why there’s no map,” he says. “No one ever went through that door. That I know of.”

This raises many questions, mainly about how the door opened in the first place. Byleth stays silent, though, unsure if she really wants to know the answer.

In the following rooms—and it’s a maze again but Claude walks without showing any sign of hesitation—the temperature keeps getting higher and the air is humid. It feels like being in Brigid, but without the warm sun and the beautiful beaches. More hellish, in sum.

Even Claude seems to lose his cool for once, as he starts cursing more and more at every obstacle they meet.

“Damn, I really didn’t expect these rumours to be true,” he grumbles. “The lack of light is one thing… But how could they stand the heat?”

Byleth stops walking, head turned to a wall. Curiously enough, she knows the answer to that question.

“Do you see these holes?” she asks, pointing at a tunnel about thirty centimetres in diameter near the top of a wall. “Air pulsed through it to regulate the temperature.”

It seems that Claude wants to add something, but he opts for staying quiet instead, clearly pondering her words.

“So, the system is simply down, much like the light is,” he finally says.

“I think so.”

It’s not like she is an expert in this field, but Byleth saw something similar in Shambhala. The city was buried deep inside the earth, but the air was as fresh as outside.

In Mu, this technology was absent from the higher levels. This fact coupled with the more refined buildings seems to corroborate Claude’s theory: this place was reserved for the elite. The houses even have doors, made of the same black metal as the library’s own entrance. As they pass near a building, Claude suddenly stops on track.

“Do you hear it?” he murmurs.

Byleth frowns. “No…”

Claude closes his eyes and furrows his brow. Byleth holds her breath until he opens his eyes again and he pushes on the door near them. It makes a terrible sound as it opens, probably alerting every monster—if any—in the vicinity. Claude doesn’t seem to care for one second, though, and as if he were a man on a mission, he enters the building.

“Close behind us,” he says to Byleth. “And please… Keep as quiet as possible.”

Byleth obeys and watches at their surroundings. The building clearly isn’t a house, for there is what seems to be a reception desk in the entrance. Strange machinery and plumbing cover the walls and the roof. Claude keeps progressing inside, going from one room to another, inspecting them all quickly, Byleth stuck on his heels, until they cross another doorframe and reach what seems to be a cave again. It is relatively small, perhaps the size of Rhea’s old audience room. On the part near the entrance, the walls and the floor are made of white stone and carefully polished. The rest of the room is only dark rock, and in the middle of it, there is a natural pond.

“I think it was a reservoir.” Claude smiles to himself. “Really, of all things…”

He lets out a sigh. Clearly, it isn’t what he was expecting to find. Still he seems somewhat contempt about the place, as he drops his bag on the floor unceremoniously and stretches his arms. “Pause!” he says.

Byleth also feels relief at the view of this strange, peaceful place… She crouches near the water and dips her hand in.

“It’s really warm,” she says. She isn’t some sort of precious, delicate lady who cannot go a day without a bath, but it’s been probably a week since they stepped in there and she has grown tired of washing herself with a rag and ice-cold water. Plus, it seems like Claude was unto something, after all. In the dark, she can perceive a dull light on the opposite side of the pond.

“Stop,” she orders Claude when she sees him about to light up the light-catcher in the middle of the room. “I think there is something in there,” she murmurs. “Light won’t help us.”

She gets rid of her boots and she peels off her clothes swiftly, lamenting she will have to put them back on again when she is done. They are so dirty they stick to her skin. She unties her long hair, but she doesn’t bother untangling it. When she is completely naked, she simply dives into the pond.

The water is at the perfect temperature and she allows herself to savour the sensation if only for a few seconds. There is little light and no soap, but when she closes her eyes, it feels almost like being home.

She swims for a bit until she reaches the other side of the reservoir. It is, without a doubt, a natural pond that was put to practical use, maybe to supply hot water to the many houses of the city. She cannot see any clear exit nor entry for the water. Probably underground, she supposes. And how is it heated? It seems somewhat deep, but it feels hotter near her feet. She looks at the water but it’s really just dark, impenetrable liquid to her eyes. She lets them adjust and after a minute or so, she starts seeing what she perceived from the bank. There is a dim light, at the bottom of the pond.

“Come here,” she shouts at Claude. “There is something inside the water!”

She turns around to watch him. He is still standing on the edge of the pool, straight as an arrow and fully clothed.

“What are you waiting for?” she asks.

 _Oh, right, there is_ that _issue_ , she remembers as soon as the words leave her mouth.

“Just keep your pants on!” she shouts again.

Claude still doesn’t move at all _._ She’d pay good money on this very moment to be able to see what sort of expression he is making, but sadly he’s engulfed by the dark, their only light source located behind his back. It gives her an idea, though.

“Can you see me, now?” she asks him.

Claude squints. “Not really, it’s too dark,” he says without much enthusiasm.

“Then come!”

Deciding to ignore him for now, Byleth puts her head below the surface of the water and she tries to observe the light. It doesn’t seem to come from one particular place. It’s tracing a line at the bottom of the pond.

Claude’s voice rings to her ears when she surfaces again. 

“There _is_ something in there…” he says.

Byleth yells in surprise.

He smiles sheepishly in response. Water is dripping from his long hair.

“I wonder if it’s a natural phenomenon,” Byleth says, trying to remain composed. “The colour is similar to the one in the library, isn’t it?”

“You are right,” Claude says. “I’ve got an idea.”

He immediately dives headfirst and quickly disappears in the dark, leaving nothing but waves behind him. Byleth catches her breath, all of a sudden painfully aware of her environment.

Suddenly, the light below her shines more and more intensively.

Claude emerges again. He coughs.

“Did you see that?” he asks, voice full of excitement and face full of wet hair.

“Is it reacting to you again?”

Claude nods vividly, splashing water everywhere.

“I’ll show you. Hold your breath.”

Before she has time to add anything, Claude grabs her hand and dives again, pulling her underwater with him.

Below the surface, she can see both her environment and Claude much clearer. The light emanating from the ground is almost blinding. It’s a cold, blueish light, indeed similar to the one they saw in the library. Claude dives lower and lower, until they reach the bottom of the pool. There is a long crack there, a few centimetres in width and that spans horizontally all along the floor. The light is coming out of it, or more precisely, out of the glassy material that seems buried deep inside. Claude guides Byleth’s hand to the edge of it. It feels warm to the touch, warmer than the water surrounding it, and the rock is vibrating.

No. More than a vibration, it’s low beat, almost mechanical.

Tu-tum. Tu-tum. Tu-tum.

Claude takes an impulsion on the ground and propels them to the surface again.

“Is it alive?” Byleth asks the second she emerges from the water. “It felt like a pulse. A heartbeat.”

“No,” Claude answers immediately. “Maybe…?” He frowns, scratching his head. “Frankly, I don’t know,” he admits, shaking his arms. “I thought what happened in the library could have been some sort of coincidence or just a happy accident… But now I’m sure of it.”

“Sure of wha—”

“This is why no one in Morfis who came here before could turn on the library!” he cuts her. “But I could!”

“Claude!”

He grabs her at the shoulders.

“I knew it! I was right all along!”

Byleth shakes her head frankly. “I’m not following you at all.”

“Ah.” He pauses and lets out a sigh. “I guess it’s only fair that I take the time to explain it to you, then…” he says. “I do have a tendency to… Uh… Get carried on.”

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

They take some time to wash themselves, although there is only so much they can do without soap, and they instal themselves near the water. Claude, who is more foresighted than Byleth, or perhaps just vainer, actually carried a bunch of clean clothes with him. He hands her a tunic—making sure he doesn’t watch her as she leaves the water—and slips into one himself.

They eat some dry meat and finally settle, sited on the floor. The air is warm and damp, but it isn’t as bad as outside and the stone floor provides a welcome coolness to their bodies. The light, diffracted by the water, projects itself on all surfaces, giving the room an eerie atmosphere. On a common accord, they don’t turn on the light catcher.

“What is the one thing that makes the people of Fódlan unique?” Claude asks her. He tries to arrange his hair with his fingers as best and he can, to no avail.

Byleth munches on a piece of meat, hugging her knees close to her chest. She takes her time to think her answer through. Ever since he touched the underwater breach, Claude is excited like a child. He is almost bouncing in place, back and forth, and his eyes are brilliant and inquisitive. She doesn’t want to let him down.

“The reason why you are here,” he continues when he sees she’s clearly struggling.

“Crests,” she finally answers.

“Crests.” He nods frankly. “Because Fódlan was isolated for so long, no one outside of Fódlan possesses a crest. But because of my … circumstances, I do.”

“And you think this is why you can light up this structure.”

“Exactly. I’m a normal person, but it does make me special compared to the rest of the people here.”

It does make sense. Fódlan was so isolated from the rest of the world odds are, very little people with a crest, bare none, ever put a foot in Mu. Not to mention touch anything and accidentally power the city.

“If you need a crest to light up this place,” she says, “does that mean that the people of Mu were from Fódlan?”

“I have my theory. For that, though… I will need your insight.”

“Mine?”

Claude scratches the back of his head. “I heard things about the Church and about Rhea. Things that happened during the war and that I couldn’t see with my own eyes. I need you to confirm they are true.”

“I see.”

“Rhea, she was a dragon, correct? Similar to the one in my books…”

Byleth nods. “Her people… They are called the Nabateans. Or so Edelgard told me.”

“The Nabateans…”

He looks pensive. Did he read about them in his books? They seemed to have detailed information about the subject.

“And Rhea…” he continues, “she was Saint Seiros, wasn’t she? I mean, it’s either that or she just really liked to disguise herself.”

This is something Byleth could never confirm, but she has little doubt about the truth.

“I think… I think she truly was Seiros,” she says.

“Thank you.”

Claude reaches for a charcoal inside his bag and he spreads his little red notebook wide open on the floor. He writes quickly on the left page, with that awful handwriting of his: “Fódlan = Crests”. And below it: “Rhea = Seiros = Nabatean”.

“According to the holy scriptures,” he continues, “the people of Fódlan had no crests before the Elites were granted some, and that was only a thousand years ago or so. But this place is way older than that. If the people of Mu had crests, then they preceded the Fódlanese crests by centuries, if not millennia. It is unlikely these events are linked directly.”

On the right page, he writes: “Morfis” and “No crests”.

“How did crests appear in Fódlan, exactly…?” Byleth asks.

“You really are clueless about the holy scriptures, aren’t you?” Claude mocks. “Not that I blame you… The goddess granted them to the Elites. Right when Saint Seiros appeared. She also had one, of course.”

“I see. I do have … a theory, then.”

Claude smiles at that. “Go ahead,” he encourages her.

Byleth takes a deep breath. She is not good at this, but it is something she thought about a lot during her research.

“Jeralt… No matter the years, he wouldn’t age,” she starts. “And Rhea… No, Seiros. She told me that she had saved his life when he was young. Jeralt was always discreet about these things. He wouldn’t talk about his past. But after the war, when I searched through Hanneman’s library, looking for a way to save Edelgard, I found this register. It was a list of all known people with a crest. Your name was there, Claude, and so was my father’s. I always knew he had a crest, but from what I could tell, his was special. He had … the major crest of Seiros.”

“Mmh.”

“He never said a word about his parents. I think he was an orphan… But Linhardt told me that for him to have this crest, he would have had to be part of the imperial lineage.”

“Oh… Are you secretly an imperial princess, Byleth…?” Claude teases.

She looks at her dirty feet and considers her position, sited in a cave half-naked with an equally half-naked man, in the middle of nowhere. “Most likely not.” She smiles a little. “But after all, bastards aren’t unheard of…

“I think that when Seiros saved my father, it changed him. And whatever she did to him, it was the same that happened with the Elites as well. It is said that they didn’t age quite like the rest of people. They lived for a hundred years and… What with this smile…?”

“It’s all I ever wanted to hear,” Claude says. “In the books I found, they talked about a ritual… A ‘blood pact’. I couldn’t grasp exactly what it entailed, and I assumed it was a rite of passage. We do have something similar in Almyra, to swear loyalty to someone. But maybe it was more similar to what happened to the Elites, and to your father. They exchanged their blood with Seiros’. That’s how they got their crests and their longevity. The crests are transmitted through blood, this is why they go from the parents to their children. We inherit it, just like we inherit their face, their skin, and their eyes. The books never used the term ‘crests’ in particular, but I found concepts that seemed similar. Marks that appear on certain individuals, making them special… Royalty members described as ‘sacred-blood’. And so on.”

It’s not much of a surprise, but Claude did do his research after all. It’s quite clear now why everyone told her to meet him in the first place. He couldn’t help her with her issue in particular, but he is knowledgeable in his own right.

“Seiros would have come there and she gave the people of Mu a crest as well?” Byleth says. “But what for…?”

“No, I don’t think it was her at all. Seiros and Fódlan… They are probably a separate case. But it is a situation which could help us to understand this place.”

He takes his notebook and skims through the pages, looking for some sort of information. He closes it, finally.

“When we think about it… There are two solutions.” He straightens up. “The first one is that the people of Mu were like Rhea. Nabateans, you called them. They lived here and this strange energy running through the ground could sustain their society because for some reason, it reacted to their crest. They stayed there for years and years and built this civilisation until it collapsed.”

“But there is no trace of them anymore. No sign of their crest is left in Morfis.”

“Imagine that they never meant to come here in the first place. Don’t they say that the Goddess came from the sky? Maybe it was the same for them. An accident. And all they ever wanted was to go back home. So, they used this power to do that. They dug this city to have enough energy to reach the stars. And the Dark Star was simply one of them, their leader perhaps.”

“It’s a beautiful idea,” Byleth muses, thinking about the library’s ceiling. “A goddess trapped in the sky in Fódlan, and a god trapped underground in Morfis.”

“Two halves of a same whole,” Claude continues. “I also like this idea. But it seems too convoluted, doesn’t it? I don’t think what really happened was as beautiful.”

“You think it’s the second solution, then…?”

“Yes…” He nods. “My hypothesis is that the people of Mu weren’t like the Nabateans at all. On the contrary, I think they were just regular humans; humans who got granted the power of a god.”

“Of the Dark Star.”

“I imagine … that they found this creature, this … god, or whatever it was, buried underground, its power running through the earth. Maybe it was too weak to move, maybe it was just stuck there… Or who knows, maybe _they_ locked it down there, to keep it to themselves. But in any cases, the people of Mu worshipped this god, and at some point, they drank its blood. They used its energy to build this place and to prosper, using the poor lad like small wood feeds a fire. And now that they are all gone, the Dark Star … it stayed behind. And it is still down there, entrapped, its blood pulsing through the rocks, answering to the flesh of his kin and of those who stole that power. To my own blood.”

“That’s…”

“An awful image, isn’t it? But not an impossible idea, right?” His eyes darken. “People can be cruel… They worship the very thing that they fear. And they exploit it, to rule over their own. Isn’t it really all that different to what was happening in Fódlan before your little emperor rushed like a blind dog in a meat market and destroyed the nobility and the church alike? I wouldn’t say so.”

“But… What became of them, then? They couldn’t just disappear like that!”

Claude gulps. “What if one day, that power simply turned against them?”

Byleth catches her breath. While she never learnt the truth about their nature, she saw what the Relics and the Crest stones could do to a human body. Yes, she witnessed it with her own, two eyes, and the horrific vision never really left her.

“I heard the rumours about what happened to the missing students in the Academy, and to Dimitri’s army during the battle on the Tailtean Plains,” Claude continues. “What is waiting for those who touch the divine when they shouldn’t. And… It’s just a theory, of course… But have you noticed? The creatures we met there… The gargoyles and the dark thing from before, they are strangely—”

“—human,” Byleth cuts him. Air leaves her and she feels like puking.

“In any case,” Claude says, ignoring the distress on her face and trying to retain composure himself, “whether it’s coming from a fallen god or another supernatural source… The power running through this place is out of this world. And the lower you go, the stronger it becomes.”

“What could have been worth the trouble of living underground? What were they doing with it?”

“I’m sure you also have a good idea about that.”

“What do you mean...?”

“I heard that the Church of Seiros burnt Arianrhod to the ground in the blink of an eye. The light came from the sky, and it was so bright and powerful, it could be seen from Almyra.”

“A weapon,” Byleth lets out in a breath.

“That’s how humanity goes, doesn’t it? We grow, we prosper … and we kill each other. Maybe having their hands on such power was worth the sacrifice of losing access to the sun.”

The Agarthans also did it, somehow. They lived hidden underground, but their technology was far ahead everything else in Fódlan. But what are the implications, then, for Claude, and for his goals?

“Is it … is it what you are looking for...?” Byleth asks him, afraid of his answer. “Do you want to meet the Dark Star or … to use this weapon?”

“Ah…” He looks surprised. “No. Not really.”

She has to know, now. The situation is much more sinister and dangerous than the silly adventure he seemed to be embarking for. It is clear that there is more than curiosity to his design, something that justifies risking their lives in the first place.

“Claude...!”

She leans towards him and she plants her hand above his. She looks at him in the eyes, pleading him to answer.

Claude diverts his gaze, at first, but his eyes land on her cleavage, very much exposed at this angle, so he redirects them to the ceiling instead, and when Byleth squeezes his hand tighter, he finally has no other choice but to look at her again.

“I guess… There is no point in hiding it anymore…” he finally says.

Byleth lets go of his hand and Claude stores his notebook back into his bag. He takes out another book instead. “I’ll tell you.”

He takes a deep inspiration and puts his glasses back on his nose. His face is grave.

“Down there, there is a device… Or that’s how I interpreted it anyway.”

“A device.”

“Yes.” He opens the book and shows her some words written inside. In his agitation, he seems to forget that Byleth cannot read them, but she doesn’t tell him and stays quiet, her eyes focusing on the drawings instead.

“They talk about a ‘clock’. A gearing of some sort, and…” Claude takes a pause and looks at her in the eyes, as if to prove her his sincerity. “It is said … that it could turn back time.”

Byleth freezes at these words. There is no doubt in Claude’s eyes, no trace whatsoever of a lie. As she fails to answer him under the weight of his words, he quickly turns his head back to his book, visibly ashamed.

“You don’t believe it, do you?” he says. “I don’t blame you… No one does.”

Byleth gulps, processing what he just said. If the Dark Star is similar to Sothis … then it would be possible. Yes, it could be real. She saw humans turning into monsters, dragons that were straight out of legends and she, herself, lived with the voice of a goddess in her head. _She could turn back time, for fuck’s sake…!_

“No, no!” she says, frankly shaking her head. “I believe it too!”

“Do you…?”

“Yes!”

Claude smiles. “That’s a relief.”

He adds nothing for a while, as if he’s thinking about the next thing to say.

“You know,” he whispers finally, “I actually went back to Almyra after the war. You had ruined my plans, but I was never one to give up like that. So, I made my life there to fulfil my long-held ambition.” He scratches the tip of his nose, slightly embarrassed. “I even got married.”

“Did you…?”

“Crazy, eh? Who would have thought!”

 _Everyone would_ , Byleth keeps to herself. But now that she thinks about it, it is true that despite his charisma and his pretty face, Claude wasn’t exactly popular in Garreg Mach. He was good at pretending otherwise, but he always looked alone, even surrounded by a hundred people.

“Still,” Claude continues with an awkward look on his face, “in the end, it was a disaster… It didn’t work out at all. And not just the marriage… Everything went wrong. And so, I ended up here, in Morfis…”

There are still many things Byleth wants to ask him. Who was he, in Almyra? What were his plans? His so-called ambition?

She imagines him, arriving in Morfis all alone. When was it…? Four years ago, she seems to recall. Could he even speak the language? She pictures him, as lost as she was the first time she put a foot here, and she sees him reaching Senerio and buying his shop, selling baubles in the day and retreating to his library during the night. She thinks about him discovering this place, reading about it, and somehow deciding to decipher the books his friend-to-be sold to him. Then travelling all the way down there to the library, and locking himself up for months, surrounded only by books and darkness. And what for?

She squints her eyes.

She remembers how serious his face was when she discovered him in his library, a quill in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. How focused and yet tired he looked. How she barely recognised him, for he seemed way too old for his age. There hasn’t been a single day since then when she saw him relax for real. He’s always head inside a book, writing something, eyes lost somewhere, inaccessible.

“Everything that you have done…” she says, breaking the silence. “Studying so hard, and risking your life to find that device… It isn’t just for your ambition, isn’t it? It is all for them… For the Golden Deer.”

Claude looks surprised at her deduction and then he smiles. “There really isn't any in-between with you, eh…? You are either completely clueless, or reading me like a book.

“It’s a bit pathetic, wouldn’t you say…?” he murmurs. “I just can’t let it go, even after all this time… What happened that day in Derdriu…” He rubs his eyes quickly, and silence settles.

“In some ways, Almyra is more similar to Fódlan than people would admit, you know,” he continues. His voice is trembling a little. “You are only as valuable as your battle experience. How many foes you have killed, how many fights you have survived. How many scars ornate your skin. By their standards, I was a hero, but… They could never understand that I… I never wanted anyone to die for me.”

“This is why you want that device.”

He nods. “I’ve been thinking about it for years, ever since I read about it in one of these books. I studied the question and it’s the only solution I could find.” He chuckles. “I know how crazy I sound, trust me! I’m not even sure if it’s a machine or if it is the Dark Star itself… But whatever it is, I will find it. The entrance was sealed for so long, it has to be there, somewhere! And when I find it, I will go back to the moment when it all went wrong. Before Derdriu, before the war… Before the Officer Academy, perhaps. Before we even met! I will get things right, this time around. I won’t let anyone die for me again. That’s what I promised myself.”

Byleth looks at her feet, thinking about his words. During the war, she put her powers to their limits. Sometimes, she rewound time so much it was hard to remember who was alive, and who was dead. She always made sure she still had some leeway at the end of every battle, so that when the moment came to count every single one of her allies to make sure everyone was fine, she’d still have a chance to go back in time should she had forgotten one, lost as she was between her many timelines, one foot set in reality, and one in a future that would never be.

But while she erased the deaths, the shock she felt every single time she saw one of her friend die was left intact. It was a terrible burden to be left all alone with this knowledge. She never talked about these powers to anyone, however, not even to Edelgard. She feared it would create incomprehension or worse, resentment.

“You alone will remember what happened during all these years,” she says. “It will be very lonely.”

“It will.” Claude nods. “But everyone will be alive. It’s worth the cost, wouldn’t you say?”

Of course, it is. She would do the same. She _did_ the same. But there is no guarantee whatsoever things will indeed turn the way Claude wants them to. Some things are written in stone. Some things are meant to happen.

They stay silent, watching the waves projected on the ceiling.

Claude’s long fingers trace a path on the paper and his eyes follow. Byleth looks at his grave face as she sets herself on the ground to rest, her head on a pile of dirty clothes. Even now, he is still working.

“In Enbarr,” she finally murmurs, “they didn’t understand either.”

“Uh?” He turns his face to her.

“I won’t pretend to know what you’ve been through… But when the war ended… I felt helpless. No one seemed to understand why I was so … sad. Even I couldn’t understand. I could never forget either, what happened that day. When I close my eyes, I still see their faces.”

Claude closes his book and takes off his glasses. His hair has started to dry and it is shaping into unruly curls.

“What happened in Derdriu… It was really just between you and me, wasn’t it?” he murmurs.

“I think I needed to hear the things that you told me in the library,” she answers. “No one ever confronted me about all of that. We had won the war. We had created the future we were all dreaming of… It was as if nothing else mattered anymore. But it felt wrong.”

Claude observes her. His eyes are soft, a far cry from the fury she could read into them the last time the topic was brought up.

“Tell me… Would have it been easier on you? If I simply hated you?”

Byleth is tired of thinking about the sort of answer he wants to hear, so she just tells him the truth.

“I think so. Hate is something I can understand well enough.”

Kronya, Rhea, Arundel. They had wronged her, and the people that she loved. She killed them all and she never looked back. These are deaths she never came to regret.

“When I look back,” she continues, eyes focused on the patterns on the ceiling, “it is true that you always acted a bit strange with me… But you were also kind. I was too self-absorbed to see it.”

“Kind… You keep saying that.”

“Mmh… Yes.” She sighs. “Like that night when you danced with me. I often wondered why you did that, when there were so many other people to pick instead of me.”

Faced with his silence, Byleth shakes her head to dissipate her embarrassment. Why is she even bringing this up now?

“Sorry, it was long ago,” she says. “You probably don’t even remember.”

“No, actually, I do,” Claude answers much to her surprise. “But sometimes, there isn’t a grand motive behind my actions, you know. Although I’ll admit, it’s only _sometimes_.” He chuckles and closes his eyes. “I’ve always thought we were more similar than you believed. I think it’s part of why I was drawn to you… You were this mysterious woman, full of secrets and with more power than I could ever dream of. And I was a restless brat, thirsty for answers and for strength. But in the end, we both stood out like a sore thumb, and it was what mattered to me.”

He pauses for a while, and Byleth’s eyes are glued to his face. His cheeks are pink.

“I think I simply liked you,” he lets out.

Byleth blinks. “Ah… Really…?”

“It was nothing,” Claude brushes off quickly, still smiling a little to himself. “As you said, it was a long time ago.”

He smiles cockily.

“And it seems that _you_ also need my help after all, don’t you?”

When he acts like that, he is the Claude she knows, both unnerving and charming in his own way.

“I…”

“I’m jesting,” he adds. “It will be alright, don’t worry. I have things under control.”

Byleth ponders his words, and she lets her thoughts wander to the sound of the water.

To turn back time, to erase the mistakes from the past. If Claude’s theory proves to be the truth, then this place holds a great power that he could use to fulfil this grand scheme of his that she destroyed long ago. But Claude is an idealist, in the end, a true empath who cares more about the others than himself. And he would rather erase it all and save his friends than take his chance. She wasn’t wrong that day, when she perceived a tender heart behind his cold mask.

She doesn’t want to think about the consequences of rewinding time, nor about what it would entail for Edelgard and for Fódlan. Back when she held such power, she never really thought much about the consequences either. There were the people whose deaths she erased, and there were those she never managed to save. And every time, by this simple action, she altered history forever. She wouldn’t even be there today, if it weren’t for this power who allowed her to save her own life, on that fateful night, then to save that of many others in the years to come—Claude’s included.

His turn has come to make a difference. She is determined to help him. She understands now that she is ready to drift away from this dreadful life she carved for herself, a life that never really hold up to what Edelgard had promised, a life in which it feels like she is the only one still standing, alone even surrounded by a hundred people and sticking out like a mercenary thrown the middle of a grandiose ball. Clueless, useless, pitiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to everyone who guessed what would happen in this chapter haha  
> It made me laugh a little when I read your comments.
> 
> Next time is the climax... Sort of. Thank you for staying around, and I'll see you there!


	10. Unbreakable Oath

When he arrived in Morfis, he bore no name. Of course, he had not been Claude for years, but this time around, he knew that he couldn’t be Khalid anymore either.

He had run away, after all, and it was more out of instinct than motivated by a precise plan. When confronted with a choice between life and death, he had naturally picked the former. But as time went by and the distance separating him from his birthplace grew larger, he started to ask himself: what even live for? His dreams and his ambitions had all turned to ashes, and by leaving Almyra he was doing nothing more than delay the inexorable. To someone with always an objective on mind, a life without meaning felt barely worth living for.

And so, lay on the deck of the merchant ship leading him to this new place he would now have to call his home, Claude, Khalid, the duke without lands, the prince without a title, looked at the stars.

He remembered Nader, his late friend and mentor, and his words of wisdom that carried him through countless hardships.

_As long as you are alive, you have won._

He inhaled once and he slapped his cheeks. He eyed at his bow, carefully enveloped in a cloak on his left.

That’s right. He was alive, and he still had his trump card.

It wasn’t a plan B—he had already exhausted all the letters of the alphabet—and barely even a _plan_ at all, but he still had an opportunity, and in that instant, it seemed enough to carry on, for he also had power.

With a Relic in his hands, he could accomplish much more than normal human beings, and if he could forget about Almyra altogether, which now belonged to people who would rather see him dead than alive, he remembered how he had planted the seed of an alliance in Fódlan. But for that flower to grow and turn into an exploitable asset, he needed time, to think things through and to come back and take the centre stage once again.

And so, he thought about how he now ought to call himself. The answer came to him quite quickly as he realised the scenery before his eyes was one he had only ever seen in books. Far down south, the night sky, indeed, was quite different from the one he was used to contemplate in Almyra, or even in Fódlan. Among the foreign stars and constellations, he felt strangely happy when he encountered a familiar geometry.

There were many legends behind this constellation, and he didn’t really know where they originated from. All recountings of the story were a bit different, although they shared some common points that rang true to his own situation. They talked about broken promises, revenge, and redemption. All the stories ended in the same fashion, with its hero immortalised into the sky, forming that constellation that could be seen wherever you were in the world, and therefore now perfectly displayed in front of him. A silent, distant landmark, a known face in this alien sky. The Hunter; Orion.

This was how he got to be known in Morfis from now on; the name more associated with his bad deeds than with his prowess. He didn’t have much choice, when all he had to his new self was a few gold coins and the precious weapon he kept carefully dissimulated. Stealing food, begging for money, sleeping under porches… He was not exactly proud of the things he had to do to survive; but survive he did, in a remote town where his identity could be concealed, hidden from assassins and mercenaries alike.

From the occasional travellers who knocked on his door, he learnt about the dreadful developments overseas that ruined any chance he ever had to make peace with his allies of a day. And he could have been crushed by that prospect as days, months passed by, and sometimes this new existence felt like no more than a miserable flicker of life. Often, he thought about giving up, and he probably would have had if not for the man whom he met one day on the marketplace, and his books full of secrets.

Inside his room which slowly turned into a library, he learnt about ancient civilisations, foreign languages, and forbidden technologies. He read about that machine, and the scriptures said that those of pure, royal blood could use it to turn back time. And it sounded delusional and too good to be true even to him, but it was exactly what he needed to hear, and so he embraced the idea, throwing reason out of the window.

He had reached a dead end and this extraordinary, out-of-this world story was his one, single thread of hope, the only thing that mattered anymore and that he intended to hold onto no matter the cost. It was a promise he had made to himself, long ago, and to his friends who had died to protect him.

And so, he studied day after day; he travelled to this place of myths and legends, and he failed, again, and again, brought down to his knees and broken, but never really defeated. His hope nothing more than a small, flickering light, he almost never recovered until one day, Byleth appeared on his doorstep. She was the missing link, a beacon of light. And her presence changed everything.

And it hasn’t been easy, to bring her all the way down to Mu. He had to dissimulate information, to embellish the truth, and to use her weak points to his advantage. He even lied, and despite what people would say about him, it isn’t something he is truly used to do. But here they are now, and Byleth has proved her loyalty more than once. 

So, Claude is leading the way, and he is barely using his eyes anymore. He focuses on his ears instead, listening to a sound he’s been searching for ever since they left the library. He needs to be careful not to mistake it with the other strange noises emitted by all sorts of apparatus they keep encountering now that they walk through this untouched place. He already got tricked by the vein inside the reservoir. He understands why, now: they are similar in nature; but the pitch was slightly too high, the beat too quick. He is sure he managed to identify the right target after they walked further below and the sound became clearer.

He follows it, his eyes almost closed and his ears on alert. Like a child running to answer his parents’ call, he walks, guided by that slow hum calling for his blood, and he doesn’t need his eyes, for he has Byleth’s. Obeying his orders, she is dead silent.

The sound gets louder and louder as they march on, almost loud enough to deafen his own heartbeat. Claude catches his breath; and together, it feels like they are beating in unison. He is afraid, so terrified his legs are trembling, but he also feels relieved. It is an old and familiar sound, after all, one that never truly left his side ever since the day he first reached the Riegan estate. It feels like coming home.

And this is how, ultimately, he reaches it.

He stops in front of his target and, suddenly aware again of Byleth’s presence behind him, he hears her stopping as well. She doesn’t say a word nor move a finger, but he can feel the wariness emanating from her body.

Claude looks at the creature. Their eyes meet; brilliant green against dark red. He recognises the humanity behind this gaze; the pain, the anguish, and above all, the danger. He wonders if his own eyes are telling a similar story.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

It looks like a bird, but the size of a dragon, and it is curled up in front of a portal similar to the one they went through higher up. Its wings are deployed on each side of its body, blocking the way. Byleth can make up their shapes thanks to the flickering light of their torches, reflecting against the jet-black feathers.

The creature is barely awakened. Every time it expires, the air is vibrating all around them. It seems tired if not peaceful, but its red eyes, half-opened, are focused on Claude who is approaching carefully.

He crouches and plants his torch in a pile of sand.

Byleth draws her sword.

“It’s useless,” Claude murmurs to stop her. “It is more machinery than alive. Steel won’t hurt it.”

Byleth squints and she wants to question him, but she keeps quiet. She knows about his goal and about his heart, now, and that is enough to trust him. She is taking her oath seriously.

“I know you are used to be the one in command,” Claude continues, “but listen to me carefully this time.”

He dusts his pants and rubs his hand, eyes still fixated on the creature. He then takes a deep breath and focuses. “It will not let us through,” he says, “It was designed this way. It is guarding this place. But I have a strategy.”

Claude channels his magic and as the energy rushes through his body, the creature emits a low growl in response.

Byleth gives him a panicked look, waiting for some sort of instruction.

Anticipating her fears, Claude speaks again. “I will make a diversion. You have another important role to fill.”

The monster is clearly awoken now, and its passive stance is taking a much more aggressive turn as it rises on its legs and deploys its wings. Sand flies everywhere.

“See that thing between the claws?”

Claude points at a reddish material that seems engraved between the creature’s right claws. He raises his voice to cover the ever-louder growls filling the room.

“Go retrieve it,” he almost shouts. “Show no aggression and it will only focus on me. But you have to be quick. I’m counting on you!”

Byleth looks at the sharp claws and at the red eyes of the monster, shining like an ardent fire. She gazes at Claude again.

“And then what…?” she asks him.

“Then we win,” he simply adds.

Claude extends his right hand in front of him and he starts walking towards the creature.

“Hey, chicken!” he shouts. “I think you have something for me!”

He releases a first spell, a cutting gush of wind that goes straight to the monster’s throat.

Byleth is aware something isn’t quite right. It doesn’t take her much to realise it; Claude’s behaviour speaks for itself. His actions tell her that he knows about the weak points of the creature, his words that they already met before. The monster is different from the ones they have fought so far, and its shape is strangely reminiscent of an old enemy of hers.

_Is this the Dark Star…?_

No, probably not. For now, the truth matters very little. All she knows is that none of them would stand a chance against that enemy if it were not for Claude’s knowledge. He obviously came prepared.

 _Trust him! Trust him!_ she repeats to herself again and again as she walks slowly to flank the monster. _Follow his instructions and you will be fine._

Claude’s spells seem to be effective, and it is clear that he knows what he’s doing. A thought crosses Byleth’s mind; that he learnt that magic specifically for this moment.

Breathless, she chases away the idea as she gets closer to the creature. It isn’t paying her any attention at all, focused entirely on Claude who’s still casting magic.

Now that she is close enough, Byleth understands better Claude’s words. The feathers covering the creature’s body aren’t natural; they are made of a hard material; metal, perhaps.

She spots an eerie light between its claws—her target—and another gush of wind cuts the creature. It growls as Claude keeps on casting his magic, one spell after another. The monster doesn’t bleed; Claude does.

Right. He is only trying to win her some time and if she doesn’t hurry, he will be dead soon.

Byleth plunges towards the claws, careful not to get knocked-out by the flapping wings. Their movement intensifies and she sees the body of the monster slowly elevating into the air. She eyes quickly at Claude and all she reads on his face is a silent order.

_Go for it._

She runs to cover the remaining distance and she cuts herself on the fragments of stone and dust sent flying by the creature’s wings. She sees her objective, that dull, red light, lifting off the floor as well, and she jumps at it. She clings to the _thing_ as well as she can, and she feels her feet lifting off the ground.

The object she was supposed to retrieve has no distinguishable shape in the dark. It seems fused with the creature, but it is really hard to tell with the lack of light. She tries to pull on it and the creature screeches in response and flaps its great wings harder, floating awkwardly from left to right to make her lose balance.

In response, Byleth focuses and tightens her grasp. Still holding the object tight with both her arms, she pivots head upside down and plants her heels on the creature’s leg. She pushes on her legs, all while pulling as strong as she can on her arms, but it does nothing more than stir anger into her enemy even more.

She doesn’t risk looking below her—both because she is afraid of how high she might be from the ground, but also because she is almost sure it would be useless considering the impenetrable darkness—but she cannot hear the sound of Claude’s magic anymore, and so she just assumes the worse; that he might have reached his limits.

The thought gives her enough strength to pull on her arms again. Blood is rushing through her head in that position and her vision is starting to spin. This time, she feels the object twitching a little, and it separates from the flesh with a disgusting sound. Byleth takes it as the signal to make a decisive move. She quickly reaches for her dagger and almost falls in the process, and she works the blade against the fresh wound. It tears, at last, and she falls down onto the ground, holding tight on her treasure.

Thankfully, she wasn’t as high as she could have been, and the sand cushions her fall a little. She still hurts her back badly and hears something snap inside her body, accompanied by a sharp pain. She coughs, her price close to her chest.

“Use it, now!” she hears Claude scream on her right. So, he isn’t dead.

The creature is screaming as well, and the sounds coming out of its throat are so bone-chilling and loud she wonders how she even managed to hear Claude.

He is on his knees, blood running out of his nose like water out of the fountains inside the gardens of the imperial Palace. Despite it all, he is still casting spells as much as he can, but they are barely more than a gentle breeze. The creature seems more angry than really affected by any of his attacks. Now that she looks at it, Byleth realises that it doesn’t even look hurt at all.

Without leaving his eyes off the creature nor stopping his magic, Claude shouts at her again.

“Use the bow!”

Byleth reflexively reaches for it on her back when suddenly, she freezes as she understands what Claude truly means. Not _this_ bow, but the one she is holding tight. The one she tore out of the creature’s own flesh. In retrospect, maybe it should have been obvious.

In her hands, she holds Failnaught.

She saw it several times in Linhardt’s books, but on the flesh only once, in Claude’s own hands back in Derdriu. Yet still, she would have recognised it among a million other weapons. It’s a grotesque assortment of bone-like shapes, wriggling as if it were alive and casting a sordid, red light. And instead of asking herself the reason of its presence here, all that she can think about as she feels her skin itch in contact of the Relic, is Miklan Gautier and the gruesome fate he met on the day he decided to brandish the Goddess’ property when he had no right to.

For the first time in many, many years, Byleth panics. She isn’t more worthy than him.

“I cannot use it!” she shouts at Claude.

“Of course, you can!” he shouts back. He almost falls headfirst on the ground but he stops himself with a hand last minute. “I know it looks impressive,” he growls, “but it’s still just a bow!” He casts another spell and trembles. This time, he doesn’t recover.

“I’m telling you that I can’t!” Failnaught seems to grow wicker between her hands and she cannot divert her eyes from it. “It’s a Relic!”

Despite his pain, Claude finds enough strength to look visibly annoyed.

“What are you talking about…?” He coughs and takes a second to catch his breath. “You can use the Sword of the Creator; how would that be an issue for you?”

“But I cannot use the sword anymore!” Byleth pleads and this time around, Claude turns to look at her and his expression cracks when sees the Relic inanimate in her hands.

“Wha—”

From the look on his face, it’s as if the grounds had crumbled under his feet.

He shakes his head violently. “No. We have no time for that now.” He tries to regain composure. “One arrow should be enough.”

 _Enough to turn me into a monster_ , Byleth keeps to herself, trembling.

She grimaces, but Claude has clearly reached his limits and their opponent doesn’t seem to calm down; on the contrary.

So, she takes an arrow and as she bends Failnaught, there isn’t a single second when she doesn’t remember Miklan and Dedue.

 _I won’t last long_ , she thinks as she feels the bow burning through her skin. _My aim must be clear_.

She releases the arrow and sure enough, it reaches its target. The beast shrieks at the contact and falls back to the ground in a deafening, metallic sound that makes her ears ring. There is a pause, a moment when everything is silent and still, and then the creature gets back up and it disappears through the open door, leaving nothing more than a cloud of dust in its trail.

Claude’s screams of joy cover the sound of Byleth’s own fall as she lets go of Failnaught to vomit her guts on the floor. The light is dim, but she swears she can see blood splattered on the sand.

Her eyes fixated on the ground, Claude’s voice seems more and more distant. She realises what just happened. She wipes her mouth and painfully rises to her feet again.

Claude has that goddamn smirk on his face, the one that is full of confidence, but she knows it is just a disguise.

He played her; it is clear enough now. He always wanted her to be right there, for that exact moment to happen. To retrieve his weapon. And what, next? Did he ever have any intention to help her…?

But she has no time to collect her thoughts, and even less time to formulate them. There is a low rumbling in the distance, a sound that slowly but surely grows louder. Byleth loses her balance and almost falls; Claude, who had not really managed to get up anyway, most definitely does.

“What’s happening…?”

Byleth breathes heavily, trying to make something out of the darkness surrounding them. She grabs her torch again, toss it from left to right to inspect the environment.

Head in the dirt, Claude observes, eyes wide open and short of breath. He feels something falling over him, something he would have mistaken for rain had reason not told him otherwise.

Then, the walls around them start shaking and they understand that it is sand, slipping through the tiles above their heads. An earthquake.

They both stay still and silent until the tremor stops. When it finally does, Claude sits back on his ass and chuckles.

“I’m starting to wonder if Failnaught has anything to do with this,” he muses. “Kaboom! Like a chain reaction.” As he is only answered with more silence, his eyes travel to Byleth, who is now spread on the floor, breathless.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

Byleth wants to speak, but bile and clots obstruct her throat. She didn’t hold Failnaught for long, but the symptoms haven’t subdued. She coughs violently and expels blood.

“Of course, I’m not…!” she murmurs, swiping blood off her lips. Her voice is coarse.

Claude’s grin disappears from his face as he observes Failnaught, inanimate on the ground.

He grabs his torch, still planted on the sand near him, and he drags himself closer to Byleth. He looks terrible, Byleth notes. He probably wouldn’t be able to stand up if he tried to.

When he is near her, he scratches the back of his head, his eyes scanning the room, the bow, and then, Byleth.

“We have to talk,” he says. “This was not planned.”

Is he talking about the attack or about her, she wonders? But he falls on his side with a thump, his head rested near her tight. “First,” he murmurs, his eyes closing slowly, “let me rest.”

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

He lost a lot of blood. Even with his eyes closed, Claude can feel his head spinning restlessly. The drowsiness, however, does not prevent his brain from working at full throttle.

“What did I get wrong?”

The question was for Byleth, but he isn’t sure the words really left his lips. He isn’t sure he is even conscious anymore.

Claude falls into a thick fog, surrounded by familiar voices and laughs, bombarded by memories, doubts and questions.

His goal is complex, but his ever-changing plans were always easy.

Find the Sword of the Creator. Take the head of the Alliance. Protect my friends. Take back my throne in Almyra. Find the secret of Mu. Retrieve Failnaught and defeat the guardian. Have Byleth use the machine.

“See? Easy.”

So why is it that he always, always failed? Why does he always fall short of seeing the clues that are right in front of his eyes? Why is someone so observant as him still so blind to what should be an evidence?

He confronted the question years ago, when he tried to understand why the Golden Deer spilled their blood for him. He made an oath to them, on that day. They died for his goal, so it meant that his dreams were not his only, but also theirs. To honour their memory and ease his mind, he would have to see them through.

“Wake up!”

It isn’t his voice, this time.

Claude opens his eyes—or tries to. His view his foggy and his body is numb. He wants to ask Byleth again what went wrong with her, why she cannot use Failnaught, why she lost her crest.

How _could_ she lose it when it is the information that she is looking for in the first place? She could yield the Sword of the Creator way before she became blessed by the Goddess. Everyone treated her differently when she came back after that incident in the Sealed Forest, but in his eyes, she never was any different from the person that she was before.

He has too many questions and for now, no strength left to formulate them.

Byleth leans over him and she makes him drink medicine before he can open his mouth to speak. He recognises the taste; it is one of the potions he has prepared for this exact situation. He also told her to use it as a last resort.

He wants to cry. His plan was so easy… Why did he fail to see that she couldn’t be of use? _Why didn’t he bother to check?_

He already knows the answer. It was the same for what happened in Derdriu and in Almyra: he is simply oblivious to inconvenient truths.

 _What should I do?_ he asks himself, and this is also a rhetorical question.

Find another solution, of course. Is there even another choice?

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

“I told you I went here last year,” Claude says, “but I didn’t stop at the library back then. I decided to go lower with a group of other travellers.”

They retreated a bit, as best as they could in their condition, to a space less exposed to the opened door. After drinking and eating, Claude’s forces slowly came back. Byleth can still tell he is pale, though.

She is barely surprised by his actions nor by his words at this point, she saw how impulsive and determined he could be.

Of course, he wouldn’t have stopped at the library, and of course, he kept more secrets that she would have expected.

“The scriptures said that only those with the purest blood could use the machine, and when I managed turn on the library, I thought that I would be qualified to do it,” Claude continues. “What we both witnessed in the reservoir tells me that I wasn’t that far off. But then, we reached that door…”

Byleth looks at the open portal near them. Hot air is flowing out of it. She hopes the creature won’t come back from hell.

“Not this one,” Claude says, following her gaze. “The one higher up.”

“With the skeletons.”

He nods, his face grave. “It was closed, but I couldn’t make it move at all. It would light up, and then turn off right away. At first, I thought that perhaps it was just malfunctioning.”

He eyes at the bow, still lying on the floor. “I was holding Failnaught,” he says, “and it suddenly started to act strangely. It was pulsating, but much stronger than it usually would. And I heard this noise, on the other side of the door, as if something was moving out there. Before we knew it, the door opened with no resistance whatsoever like you would push the door of a tavern. And this … creature … appeared.

“It wasn’t exactly aggressive, but my teammates panicked, and they attacked the beast. Their blades and arrows just couldn’t hurt it. It was … a slaughter. And when I was left alone, I decided to use Failnaught. It pierced through the monster’s shell like a knife through butter, but something wasn’t right. It was as if when the creature and the Relic became close enough, they entered in resonance. I think this is what the creature was after in the first place. They answered each other’s call.”

Claude looks at his left hand. He opens his fingers and closes them again, slowly. They are trembling, and weak. “It was as if Failnaught was getting angry at me. It started to heat up … and to hurt. And in the end, that damn Relic simply turned against me. It tried to… Swallow me.

“Failnaught stole my arm,” he says, bitter, “and the creature stole Failnaught and flew away. I still don’t know how I survived all of that.”

Byleth gulps. Her fingers are still burning from where she touched the Relic; her guts are still twisted by the sensation. This is why Claude was so sure about his theory. The Relics can even turn against their own master, and he experienced it first-hand.

“What I learnt from that expedition was that in the end, my crest was never all that special,” Claude continues. “Not even in Fódlan was it the purest nor the strongest. And it wasn’t good enough to protect me against my own weapon.” He turns his head back to her. “Which leads me to you.”

“Me.”

“Your crest…” He touches her hand with the tips of his fingers. “Your crest is different.”

“What do you mean…?”

Claude sighs, his dark gaze lost in the sand again as he traces random pattern on the floor with his hand.

“What I mean is that I don’t think I will be enough to use the machine,” he says. “You have a way better shot at this than me, because your crest is the real deal.”

He looks at Failnaught. “Or was, anyway,” he murmurs.

So, this is it, his whole story. He brought her here so she could help him. Because he thought she was special.

“Surely you noticed that I have changed, haven’t you?” Byleth asks, pointing at her blue hair that used to be the colour of starlight.

“Of course, I did,” Claude says with a notable irritation in his voice.

Now that adrenaline has ran off and that reality has settled, he looks genuinely disillusioned. She measures how crucial she probably was to his plan.

Claude shakes his head in denial. “How is that even possible…?”

“It’s a very long story,” Byleth whispers. It is the truth. She doesn’t even really know the reason why she became human again. All she has are speculations, and no hypothesis she could formulate would change the situation anyway. She is useless to him.

Claude squints. “After I barely survived that incident with Failnaught, I had to start from zero all over again, you know. With even fewer cards in my hand than before. But then you appeared, and you were simply … a good opportunity. One I couldn’t pass on.”

“From the start,” Byleth murmurs, “from the very start you wanted me to go down there, didn’t you? This was never about helping me. Does this place even have anything to do with the information that I’m looking for? Was that a lie as well?”

Claude doesn’t deny it. “Are you mad at me?” he simply asks her.

She shakes her head slowly, eyes lost. “No…”

Perhaps she should be, but she cannot find the strength into her to complain. She is tired, so tired.

All it took for her to follow Edelgard was trust. But initially, she didn’t trust Claude at all, so why would he have done the same? She has been both too suspicious, and too complacent. He isn’t the only person in the wrong. They went this far, and all for nothing.

Claude swallows, his exposed throat moving with the action.

“Finding this machine and turning back time, it will also help you,” he says as if to justify himself.

Byleth blinks quicky. There are several things she would like to change, telling otherwise would be a lie, and she has a hard time imagining a life in Enbarr after everything that happened, however…

“Is it really what you want, Claude?”

He looks hurt, and disappointed.

“Ah…

“I thought you understood,” he simply says.

_What should I do?_

The question floats into her brain, but she doesn’t have to think about it much, for the answer is obvious.

Without a crest, she cannot use the machine. Claude probably cannot either. And she has no answer to the questions that pushed her to go this far in the first place. From the pain inside her chest, she suspects she cracked a rib in her fall, and Failnaught sucked life out of her. Claude is a wreck himself, both physically and mentally.

She promised to help Edelgard, and she promised to help Claude. She held onto that oath, as if it were a precious lifeline. But she is powerless. She is far from home, and she is tired of it all.

Claude stays silent and he ruminates, hiding his face between his knees. He also looks tired, more than he ever did before.

Suddenly, as if a brilliant thought crossed his mind, he looks for something inside the pocket of his shirt, and he gets out his red notebook. He goes through the pages, eyes hazy, and when he finds what he’s looking for, he hands it over to Byleth.

He clears his throat. “I lied to you,” he says, pointing at the open pages.

Byleth looks at them.

It is Claude’s handwriting, of course, in Almyran. He also drew schemas, of a human body, of a strange mechanism, and of … crests.

She gasps. “That’s...!”

“The answer you are looking for,” he says. “The truth is, I knew it from the start. But I needed you to follow me, so I pretended otherwise. Sorry.”

Byleth would probably faint for real, right there, if it weren’t for the immense relief running through her body.

“I won’t force you to believe me,” Claude says, ignoring her, “but this is the only thing I ever lied about. Sure, I wasn’t the most transparent person but… I am not a liar. I don’t know why it matters that much to me, but I hope you can trust that if anything else at all. The diary is yours, now. I have no reason to hide it anymore. Use it to save Edelgard.”

Byleth cannot divert her eyes from the pages. She barely hears Claude speaking. The solution to remove a crest. Apparently, it involves magic circles, but also some sort of tubes, or machinery. Claude’s instructions are written all over the paper and sure, they are disordered and not all that clear, but the information is still there.

Behind the lies and the deception, Claude kept his words. He helped her. He repaid his debt.

Byleth closes the notebook and she presses it to her chest. Her heart is thundering against the leather cover.

“So, what, now?” she murmurs.

As an answer, Claude grabs Failnaught. In contact of his fingers, the Crest Stone engraved inside the bow shines immediately, answering to its master. Claude is trembling, but he still inspects it carefully. He takes off a strap from his bag, and he arranges it around the bow.

He puts a hand on Byleth’s shoulder. “Do you remember the path to the library?” he asks her.

Byleth nods slowly. She doesn’t want to hear the rest of his sentence, but his calm, green eyes keep her in check.

“If you still need help, I wrote some notes in there,” he continues, pointing at the book in her hands. “And I assume that for the rest of the trip, you will know how to read the maps that we left in the library…”

Byleth finally finds the strength to talk. Her voice is strangled.

“Claude… What are you doing...?”

“This is good-bye,” he says, getting back on his feet. “You … you are no use for me anymore. Go home.” It is clear that he wants his words to be harsh, but his voice betrays his true feelings. Was he always so transparent, she wonders, or did she simply learn how to see behind his mask?

“What are you going to do?” she whispers, watching him secure Failnaught on his back.

Claude looks so small compared to the Relic, he is almost bending under its weight. He shrugs, the answer obvious to both of them.

_Not that!_

“That thing is still down there,” Byleth says, her worries flowing out of her mouth before she can stop them. “You cannot use a weapon, and you probably cannot use the machine either…!”

Claude shakes his head. “I won’t know until I try. Maybe all it will take is more blood. Or I will use Failnaught, since it seems to have a connection with this place as well. I will find a way. I spent too much time thinking about this to give up here. You were the plan A… But I still have a plan B. I always do.”

“Claude…”

He smiles at her.

“I will be fine,” he lies.

He puts on his usual mask of confidence, and when he speaks again, his voice is cold and commanding. It isn’t the voice of a man lost in an impossible quest nor that of a coward running away from his guilt. It is the voice of a leader. 

“You took an oath, didn’t you?” he says. “You said that you would obey me. That you would do anything to redeem yourself.”

He dramatically pushes back his dishevelled hair out of his eyes.

“Leave,” he commands. “If you want that absolution so much, do as I say. Leave, and all will be forgiven. There is no need for you to be implicated anymore.”

“That’s—”

“An order. My words are law to you… Remember?” he whispers.

Byleth stays there, on the ground, her body full of fear as she watches Claude go away and she is powerless, unable to find a comeback, split between the touch of the tender leather of the diary below her fingers, and the red light of Failnaught’s Crest stone shining in the distance. Edelgard, or Claude. Life, or death.

If Claude is so sure about himself, then why give her the notebook when it should not matter anymore?

He goes down the stairs now, and the light disappears. Quickly, even the sound of his footsteps fades away, and Byleth is left alone with a crackling torch and her ragged breathing.

Why urge her to leave and to be safe if he is going to erase time anyway?

“Liar!” she screams at the top of her lungs. “You know you are going to die!”

The only answer to her plead is her own voice reverberating on the walls. Yet, she stays still. She made a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of work with the end of the year... Sorry if I'm a bit slow lately. 
> 
> I don't know how I will handle the last two chapters since they will be very long. I still hope I can be done by the end of 2021... With the pandemia I'm stuck at home for the holidays, I guess I might as well make the most out of it haha
> 
> Thank you for reading as always! I'll see you next time :)


	11. The Runaway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grab a snack, as I suspected this update is massive. 
> 
> I had a lot of fun writting it, though the actual content is nothing fun at all. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do. You can see it as an early Christmas present :)

_Imperial Year 1186 / 2149—Almyran Calendar / Summer_

They say that every place around the planet has a distinctive smell, discreet and intimate, familiar like the back of your hand. You are so engulfed by it that it becomes a part of yourself and with time, you don’t even notice it anymore. If you were to travel the world, however, the smell of foreign lands would impose itself to you and it is only then that you would realise how much you are missing it, the perfume of home.

He wakes up and his eyelids are so heavy he keeps his eyes closed. He is blind and yet; he knows exactly where he is. The melody of the wind blowing through the hills, rustling the pine trees. The roars of the waves crashing on the cliffs in the distance. The songs of the birds. The delicate smell of flowers and incense.

He is tired—exhausted would be the right word—and the simple idea of moving if only by a millimetre sounds like a nightmare. The mattress of his bed is soft and fluffy. The air is warm, but not too much. A cool wind blows through the open windows. He can barely feel his body, enveloped as he is in this cocoon made of pillows and blankets, and it is perhaps the closest he ever felt to perfect, absolute bliss.

As the fog obscuring his mind slowly dissipates, he remembers arriving the night before. He flew hundreds of kilometres in one go, fuelled by adrenaline, and he was losing way too much blood. When he landed, the guards almost killed him on the spot before they realised who he was: Khalid, the fourth son of their esteemed king. The runaway prince.

After that … things are hazier. 

He opens his eyes at last. His vision is still blurry and at first glance, he doesn’t recognise the room around him. This wouldn’t be so weird if it weren’t for the fact the palace always was his private playground, in which every corner was a new hideout.

He’s been away for a long time. He wonders who is occupying his old bedroom. Someone certainly does. One of his brothers—which one was it again—always wanted it. Ah, yes, it was Salim. Or Firoz? Whomever it was, he probably moved there the second it became clear Khalid was away for good and not returning any time soon. 

In an inhumane effort, he moves his right hand to examine his chest. He recognises the touch of fabric, or more precisely of bandages. They are strangely wet. He brings his hand close to his face and his vision is still blurry, but good enough for him to tell the tips of his fingers are tainted red. Blood, of course. He focuses on his memories. The Ashen Demon lived up to her reputation. Her blade— _it should have been his_ —cut his flesh effortlessly. That wound really was that bad, wasn’t it…?

Pain slowly appears in his numb body. No, it _returns_. He remembers suffering horribly. He had to take several painkillers to confront the Emperor and then to make his way back home. And now, the pain is blowing off the fog still invading his head. He wasn’t only struck by the Sword the Creator, he remembers. The sting on his left shoulder takes the shape of an arrow, the burning feeling inside his tights that of a fire spell.

He feels hot, sweaty, and the bliss of the previous precious minute is turning into something intolerable as his body aches more and more by the second. He moans and his breath smells like medicine.

A door creaks—but he can only assume since he’s unable to move his head. A feminine voice speaks to him. He understands her just fine, but his words elude her when he answers. That’s right, he cannot speak Fódlanese here.

The girl approaches and she puts something on the nightstand. She looks familiar. Dark, auburn hair, a strong nose, and amber eyes. Nader’s daughter, Layla. She was but a child when he left, she would have been no more than ten. She probably doesn’t remember him. He talks to her, in the right language this time, and his accent rings wrong to his own ears. He feels like a foreigner, his words bouncing off this girl who used to watch him monopoly Nader’s attention with envy in her eyes.

She ignores him, and she wets a towel in the small bowl she has placed on the nightstand. She carefully cleans off the sweat from his forehead, his neck, his collarbones. The feeling is cool, but it makes the inferno ravaging the rest his body all the more obvious.

The pain makes him whine and hearing his grunts Layla reaches for a syringe inside the small case she left on the ground beside her. When the liquid enters his veins, the relief is immediate. She touches the side of his throat to check his pulse, and he looks at her braided hair. His eyes stop on the flower she planted there, a red peony. Before his mind goes numb again, before he is too tired to articulate a word and before she goes away, he grabs her wrist. Her eyes meet his and judging by the terror on her face, he knows that he probably looks like a mad man.

“What month is it?” he grunts.

Her answer makes his ears ring. Despite his distress, sleep claims him again.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

“We managed to cut the painkillers by half. Now, he’s still somnolent most of the time, but when he’s conscious the pain seems mostly bearable.” Layla rolls her eyes, trying to focus and not forget something important. “The cuts on his torso are healing terribly,” she adds, “but at least they are healing… Which is more than we could say so far.”

Darius clears his throat, impatient.

“What I’m trying to say is that he’s out of danger now,” Layla explains. “He’ll get out of this with some ugly scars, but realistically speaking, the time he spent stuck in bed will probably hurt him more than his actual wounds. The sooner he’s outside walking under the sun, the better.”

Darius nods slowly. “I see,” he says after a while. “Once again, thank you, Layla.”

“It’s just my job,” she brushes off.

“Discretion isn’t.”

“Oh, well, I think I made myself clear about my price.”

“And I’ll make sure you get your due.”

She bows awkwardly. “As always, I’ll take your words on it, my king,” she says before taking her leave.

Darius watches her go and he lets out a sigh, now that he is left alone in front of the big door.

He finally finds the courage to enter the bedroom. His son is still bedridden, eating his breakfast, and he barely recognises him at first. It’s been ten years. The feeling, he realises from Khalid’s inquisitive green eyes, is probably mutual.

The king drags his feet through the room, and the floor vibrates under each of his heavy steps. He stops near the bed, contemplates for a moment the face of this grown man he used to call “my boy” in what feels like another life. He looks like his mother at the same age, and the idea stirs something inside him.

However, the first words to escape Darius’ mouth are nothing comforting. 

“What have you done, Khalid?” 

“It’s nice to see you too, old man,” Khalid answers with a warm smile on his lips. He puts the trail with his food beside him on the bed and sucks the grease off his fingers.

Darius doesn’t pick up his sarcasm nor his terrible manners. He drags a chair near the bed, and he sits down. “You really got your ass handed to you,” he says.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Khalid deflects, now reaching for an apple and a knife to peel it.

Darius’ eyes wander over his son’s body, wrapped in bandages like that of a mummy. The cotton is still a bit pink and wet and the air smells like medicine and rot.

“Maybe I just imagined your delirious screams for three months straight, then.”

Khalid chuckles and he is immediately punished by a piercing pain in his abdomen. He winces a little and despite his best efforts, he fails to dissimulate it.

“I took a bet,” he says, sweat pearling on his brow, “and I think I won.”

Darius crooks an eyebrow. “You tell me.”

“Well, I’m alive in the end, right?”

Darius’ eyes say all there is to say. _At what cost, son?_

He sighs. “You’re a stubborn one, you know that?”

“That’s at least one thing we have in common,” Khalid mumbles, focusing again on peeling off his apple.

His father was always so big compared to him; even sat down he towers him like a mountain. His brothers used to mock him so much about it. They said that aside from his completion and his unruly black hair, he didn’t inherit any of his traits, that he had the face of his mother and the weak body of a Fódlani coward. The last part was never entirely true, and perhaps it was the reason why it hurt him more than the rest of the insults they would throw at him. He was the youngest, but Khalid was always the best marksman of them all by a landslide. They envied him.

“Where are we anyway?” he asks, concentrating on his task. “This room is completely unfamiliar and my nurse quieter than she should…”

“My private apartments,” Darius answers.

Khalid whistles. “Wow! Already giving me the special treatment, eh?” He grins. “Are we going to have _that_ conversation right now?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Darius cuts him. Khalid’s goal was always a bit unclear to him, but that it involved getting the throne of Almyra was barely a secret. “This is Tiana’s idea.”

Khalid’s eyes glaze over at the mention of his mother’s name. She hasn’t visited him yet. But then again, Darius is only the third person or so he has seen since he woke up three days ago.

“Rumours about you aren’t exactly nice at the moment,” Darius continues. “Save for me, your mother, and the people who took care of you in this very room, everyone in Almyra still think you are dead. The most optimistic believe you are just rotting in some cell in Enbarr. Others speculate that the crazy red lady made you her pet and that you are selling out our secrets when you aren’t too busy fucking her.” 

Khalid would almost laugh at that if the implications weren’t so gross. “As imaginative as ever,” he simply says.

“Rumours are spreading like a wildfire and most of them are full of it, but there were witnesses of your loss in Derdriu. It’s better if you stay in the shadows for a while until you recover,” Darius continues. “You’d better think about a good scenario to explain where you were for the last months.” He scratches his beard. “If you value whatever life you have left, that is.”

“So, it _is_ special treatment, after all,” Khalid muses. “Hiding me away, eh… Have you grown soft over the years, old man?”

It is half a jest; Khalid’s cries for help used to be met with far harsher words in the past. But his father doesn’t look as unshakeable as he used to be. His dark eyes are now full of pain and compassion, and it is hard to say if it’s because of the years, or because of the state of his poor son. 

“Don’t push your luck,” the king hisses through his teeth. “Many will want you dead, probably even more than before. My protection can only go so far.”

“And what are they so pressed about anyway,” Khalid asks, “if they think I’m dying somewhere in Fódlan?”

“They’re holding you accountable for Nader’s death.”

Khalid’s knife rips, and he cuts his thumb. He curses as the apple goes rolling on the floor and he sucks the blood flowing out his finger.

“Nader is … dead?” he asks, failing to hide the distress in his voice.

“When you came back and you were such a wreck we thought you wouldn’t live for another week, he flew to the Locket with his men to avenge you. None of them returned.”

Khalid fists the sheets, leaving a red stain on the white linen. “That stupid....!”

“He was stupid, yes.” Darius nods slowly, his eyes closed.

Nader always was Khalid’s confidant. He is the only person in the world who knows about his true ambitions. Khalid summons all he has into him not to cry in front of his father. His mind goes to his nurse instead.

“Then Layla, she—”

“Layla knows better than to be blinded by rage,” Darius cuts him. “And unlike these idiots, she understands well enough where her father’s devotion lay. So will hers.”

“I see.” He gulps.

“I know you’ve always been a lone wolf, Khalid. But you will not win this fight alone,” Darius continues. Out of respect for him, he diverted his eyes. “And you will need a wife.”

“That’s—” Khalid almost shouts.

“Sealing an alliance between our families is your best bet to appease these tensions. But for now, you must rest. I suggest you get your ass out of this bed as soon as you can.”

Darius leaves him alone after that. The look on his son’s face was enough to make him understand he needed some time to process the information and to mourn. In more ways than one, Nader was always more of a father to Khalid than Darius himself. He was the one who was around during his most formative years, the one Khalid would share his secrets with. The one who was ready to die for him; and eventually did.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Time seems to stretch out when you are stuck in bed, convalescent. Even under normal circumstances Khalid would have found it unbearable, but his particular situation is making it even worse.

No one really visits him, and they made it clear he had to stay inside, so he obeys. It’s not like he could do much more than that anyway, he can barely walk next door to pee without wasting thirty minutes in the process.

But worse than the incredible boredom and the now erratic pain, what he hates the most is being stuck with his thoughts.

It took him a while to really measure how bad the situation was. And it’s not just about his physical condition—Layla said that he spent the last three months oscillating between a comatose state and a few delirious hours. He forgot most of it, because of the drugs they administered him, and because of the trauma his body went through, but it didn’t erase the memories of what came before, and which are now occupying every single on his waking hours.

Coming back to Almyra was a back-up plan he had orchestrated way before the battle even started. He had thought about it since the fall of Garreg Mach, and things went mostly according to his plan. It is the part that derailed which is bothering him and turning his usual easiness into a restless rage.

He cannot stop thinking about it. She humiliated him. Oh, not only Edelgard, in whom he never had much hope nor trust anyway; no, the Professor also did. Dear Byleth. Dear Teach. They didn’t really share a significant bond, but the petty part of him still feels like she came back from the dead just to screw him over and steal what was precious to him.

He shakes his head. Hatred won’t lead him anywhere; he is well aware of it. It was never personal. He would have had lofty plans for her as well, if only she had fought under his golden banner instead of the crimson of the Empire. If only… If only they had become more than the partners of one dance and the enemies of one day, then…

He chases away this idea as well. It’s too late to delve on that, but too soon to give up. He managed to make an alliance with the Empire—could it even be called that—and from what Layla deigned telling him, Edelgard did win the war in the end. Fódlan is united, which means his plan is still well and alive. It’s not what he hoped for, but it’s _something_. And yes, it will be harder, way more complicated than what he had envisioned, but not impossible. As long as he can get the throne.

He has to focus on this task, and this task alone for now. Yet still… Still, he knows that part of him hates her. And if not for the war, for something else that he has still to confront properly. Alone in his room for still another long week, he ruminates. Hate doesn’t suit him well, but in that instant, revenge sounds like the sweetest remedy to the ache inside his chest.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

_Imperial Year 1186 / 2149—Almyran Calendar / Fall_

Unlike her husband, Tiana wasn’t all that surprised by how tall and handsome her boy had grown. He was her flesh, after all. No, what really shocked her was his boldness.

The Khalid she knew was a bratty kid, with eyes always red with tears and lips swollen with blood. He was an impulsive child with a tongue too loose for his own good, always looking for troubles yet too weak to stand for himself.

The man who came back to her, though, was almost the opposite. Sure of himself, almost to a fault, Khalid made his intentions very clear. The first thing he asked when he got strong enough to walk normally again was a bow. The second thing was to meet with both his parents in private.

When they enter the room, he is waiting for them with a pot of tea ready and three cups, and he sits on a chair in a regal stance, his hair damp with sweat from his morning training session. He looks handsome and dangerous, and when he invites them to sit down, they almost forget that he is nothing more than a guest in this palace.

When Khalid starts to speak, they understand that they are seeing the real him for the very first time.

“I’ll be blunt,” he says. “I only came back for one reason, and that is to claim my birthright. I want the throne of Almyra.”

His voice, Tiana notes, also got very deep. He reminds her of Darius when he was younger. She exchanges a look with her husband, who is visibly sharing the same thought.

“I am grateful you protected me,” Khalid continues, wincing a little as his parents remain silent, “but I won’t let you stand between me and my goal. I need to know your stance on this, so I can act accordingly.”

Darius grunts, then he clears his throat. “Khalid,” he says, “I am old and sick. It won’t be long before the vultures start making a move before my corpse is even cold. You are simply the first of them.”

“Are you going to name a successor?” Khalid asks immediately.

“I can only speculate about the true reasons why you left Almyra,” Darius only deflects, ignoring him, “but I know for sure there was more to it than just ‘I want to meet my extended family’.”

Tiana laughs and Khalid breaks character for a split second and smiles a little.

“Ambition is something I value and respect,” Darius continues. “You’ve always acted like I was harsh with you. Unfair. But I want to give all my sons the same chance, so I waited for your return.”

Khalid squints, capturing his father’s gaze. “My return.”

“Your brothers were disappointments,” he admits. “I would have chosen Shervin had you never returned, but it wouldn’t have been lightheartedly. And all Firoz ever want is to drink and pick fights. He would have gone with whomever I’d chosen. And Salim…”

“Salim is dead,” Khalid finishes instead of him.

Darius nods.

Khalid has a complex relationship with his siblings, who loved to bully him when he was a child. Salim was the main source of his torment, the eldest of the four brothers. He died a few years ago. Even before he received the missive informing him of the news, Khalid had been able to tell: for a while, there were no more assassins lurking in the shadows to take him down. Yes, Salim was a cupid, hateful man. If Khalid could give him something, it is that at least he was bright enough to notice his younger brother also had lofty ambitions.

Firoz lacks any of these qualities and, truth to be told, any noticeable quality at all. But it means that at least, he will never be a direct threat to him.

As for Shervin, he is the closest in age with him, and his hatred was always obviously part of peer pressure. Maybe he could even convince him to join his cause with enough patience and arguments.

“You were a whiny brat,” Darius says, “but you also always were the best shot out of all my sons. And people say that you are witty, and kind of heart. Not too kind for the task waiting for you, I hope.”

“That’s why he chose you,” Tiana concludes. She has a conquering smile on her face. That Darius chose her son before his older brothers was obviously yet another personal win for her, who always relinquished in these sorts of petty victories she could rub all over her detractors’ faces.

“But there a ‘but’, isn’t there?” Khalid asks.

Darius sighs. “You know things aren’t that easy. You’ve been away for almost ten years. And look at you… If tomorrow I name you my successor, you can bet on a civil war six months after you take the throne. If you make it that far.”

Khalid doesn’t add anything. He’s well aware of how things work in Almyra. And truth to be told, they aren’t all that different in Fódlan either. If a leader is deemed incompetent or too weak, he’s getting disposed of. No one wants to follow a weakling and especially not when said weakling wants to change things around as much as he does.

But the scheme his parents imagined is brilliant, given the circumstances. Even if he can recover from his strategical loss in Derdriu, the state in which he came back to Almyra would immediately rule him out as a simple waste of oxygen. So, they bought him enough time to heal, and to prepare himself properly.

“I’ll have to seduce them,” he states.

“Yes.” Darius nods. “They can forget about your defeat if you prove them wrong in every other aspect.”

“And to prove _you_ wrong as well, right?”

Darius chuckles, his voice strangely similar to his son’s.

“Shervin was the safest choice, really,” he mumbles. “With you entering the game, things will get complicated. People outside of the clan will try their luck. Their hatred for you and what you embody runs that deep.”

Perhaps this would have been considered a coup d’état in Fódlan, but in Almyra it wasn’t rare that a distinguished general or a high-ranked official took the throne instead of the King’s offspring. As long as they could prove themselves worthy enough of the title, everyone had a shot.

This is how his own ancestor went to power: through raw strength. All that matters is to prove that you are better than the other alternatives and for that, you need as much support as possible. The King’s voice weighs a lot in the decision, but ultimately, it isn’t enough.

This ensures, in theory, that a competent person will rule. In practice, though, it turns the succession into a game of seduction and corruption where you cannot afford to take your enemies for allies.

The advantage Khalid may have had by virtue of being the King’s son is outweighed by his absence from Almyra for the last decade. It was supposed to be a boon, should he had succeeded in turning his time in Fódlan into a tale of glory. It isn’t entirely the case.

To take the throne and keep it, he will need to secure a strong position. And this means seducing the most influential people in Almyra—some of which will no doubt covet the crown for themselves.

“Who should I fear?” Khalid asks. 

His parents are not used to have this sort of direct talk with him, and they seem surprised for a second, but Khalid can read the pride into their eyes when Tiana answers.

“Xerxes,” she says. “He was Salim’s right hand. His clan owns lands far east, and he has a massive army. They call him the Fearless general.”

“I heard about him,” Khalid nods. “Mostly from the people he sent after me.”

“So, he did, hey?” Tiana mocks. “Looks like the man wants to take down the whole dynasty.”

 _Oh, so this is why Salim died_ , Khalid keeps to himself. It takes nerve to cut the hand that has been feeding you for so long. The man is a vicious, no doubt about it.

“He’s popular with the sort of people who aren’t happy about the current situation,” Darius explains. “And there are many of them. Powerful people.”

The King looks pained for a moment. When he came to power, he appeased the relationships with Fódlan. It wasn’t about making peace; it was about stopping to feed on this needless war that was costing them lives and resources. Part of it was also because of his love for Tiana, as a proof of his devotion to her, although he’d never admit it. And as the long years he has spent unchallenged as the King of Almyra can show, this political stance used to be tolerated. But with years, he grew softer, weaker, and he distanced himself from politics to indulge in more inconsequential matters. He let the poison of war and xenophobia insinuates itself once again in the court and all-around Almyra.

They used to fight a lot, with Khalid, about how he was too complacent, not invested enough into politics and schemes. He would punish him, perhaps too harshly, that’s true, for his insolence. But above all, Darius felt powerful, strong as a mountain, and he never really listened to his son as seriously as he should have. Now that his hair has turned grey and he is looking back, he knows that his legacy will probably be wiped out by his successor, his history forever tainted by his shortcomings and his fence-sitting. Ignoring his son was a mistake.

Tiana, who stayed mostly silent so far, clears her throat.

“Khalid, your physical abilities are one thing, but you’ll have to use your brain, or you won’t get anywhere,” she says.

It’s a funny statement coming from his mother, the one person who always hated protocol and plotting.

“I’d say I’m even better at this than I am at shooting arrows. And I can tell you I am the best shot in this part of the world,” Khalid gloats.

“Don’t be too cocky,” she warns him. “You like playing games your way, but you’ll have to keep a low profile if you don’t want to end up dead.”

He nods slowly.

“Of the great clans, I’d say only one will follow you blindly.” She counts on her fingers. “Many are too loyal to Xerxes to support you. And of the others remaining… You can at least hope to seduce one by making a good marriage.”

 _Here we go_ , Khalid thinks, remembering what his father hinted at weeks ago. He grimaces.

“When you return officially and things settle a little, get yourself a wife,” Tiana continues. “Someone with connections inside the court and who can give you some sort of leverage. Your rivals already have a horde of followers; you don’t. And frankly speaking, you are starting at a huge disadvantage.” She hands him over a sheet of paper with a list of names and their affiliations. Most of them are foreign to him.

“Layla is probably the best party,” Tiana says. “As you know, Nader’s clan is … mostly hostile to you right now. But they love her, and should you marry her, you might be able to turn the tide. That would give you a significant advantage to seduce them.”

Khalid ponders that “seduce” is a strange choice of words when his own marriage will be nothing more than a lie.

He knows how much pronouncing these words is costing Tiana; she who ran away from her whole world to marry the true love of her life. And it will cost him as well, to go against everything he ever wanted for himself only to fulfil his ambitions. But he still listens attentively as his mother continues to speak and she details the other different candidates she’s been thinking about. Her eyes are filled with a rage she’s trying to dissimulate, and the same fire is burning inside him. It’s only yet another compromise he’s ready to make.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

_Imperial Year 1187 / 2150—Almyran Calendar / Summer_

They got married on a rainy day, only a week after Khalid officially came back to Almyra and painted himself as a brilliant warrior. He hoped his snarky smile and his brave face would be reminiscent enough of his ancestor Darius I the Conqueror for them to forget that he also shared the green eyes of his Fódlani mother.

He was quick to announce publicly that he would marry Layla, daughter of Nader the Undefeated, and when the crowd cheered at them, he knew that his mother was right and that it was the right course of action.

It is said that rain on a wedding day brings good luck and Khalid was sure he was going to need it, for this union was nothing he would have envisioned nor wanted under other circumstances.

It is not the passion of his parents’ romance, nor what he ever dreamt for himself. If anything, this marriage is convenient. It would be a folly to try and tame the Almyran court without a wife by his side. As the daughter of Nader, Layla will be able to appease part of his detractors and to win the heart of many others.

For Layla, he is just the snotty prince who used to steal oranges and her father’s attention when she was a child, and who one day disappeared to come back years later more gorgeous and broken. He is the one her father died for, but also the one who understands her pain enough to help her avenge him. It’s under this condition that she agreed to the deal: a fight to the death against the red Emperor. Khalid didn’t tell her just yet, but he has no intention to follow through.

She is far from the love of his life, but he likes her decently enough. And she is also the one who tended to his wounds, and it is part of the reason why he chose her over the other suitors his mother had selected for him. He never told anyone, though, especially not her.

Looking at himself in the mirror in the morning as he gets dressed up has become a challenge which seems more and more insurmountable every new day.

Khalid was always a bit vain, and it is true that most people would probably describe the appearance of his body as “dreadful”. The wounds were deep, but nothing but the supernatural nature of the blade that cut him can explain how badly they healed, leaving red scars of a different kind on his skin.

Normally, he would not mind it as much. He remembers the day Nader came back with his face almost sliced in three pieces and the way he laughed it off. Nader told him that the ugliness of scars is only proportionate to the reason why you got them. To most warriors, they are medals, memories left by a worthy opponent. Cautionary tales, at worse. But all Khalid sees when he watches himself in the mirror are Lysithea and Hilda, drowning in their own blood, his name on their lips. These are memories he tried to suppress, focusing on his hatred instead, but they are imposing themselves to him more and more as time goes by.

“Is it bleeding again?” Layla asks him, her naked breasts pressed against his back. She is all sticky with sweat.

After being married for nearly a year, Khalid reckons that it is probably the only ground where they can understand each other: in bed, fucking. Not that he really minds that part of their deal…

“Barely,” he murmurs, looking at the moon through the window, his fingers brushing over his chest.

“Maybe we should have been more careful,” Layla muses, still rubbing herself against him. “It’s been so long… I’ve never seen that sort of wound before.”

“…

“Layla, do you remember this story your father used to tell that I loved so much?”

“The Queen of the Desert?” she asks, stretching her arms around him.

“No, the one with the sword that could cut mountains.”

She giggles. “Are you implying that sword was used against you?”

“I am,” he says, dead serious.

A pause. “If it were real, you’d be cut in half,” Layla adds after a while. She leaves a kiss against his neck. “A shame, really,” she whispers against his hot skin.

“Maybe so. I won’t force you to believe me.” He shrugs.

So many questions were left unanswered when he flew from Fódlan. He wants to see the bottom of it. To see Byleth once again and to discover the truth about her and—

“What are you thinking about?” Layla whispers in his ear, diverting his thoughts away from Byleth. She kisses his neck again. The roots of his hair are still a bit damp with sweat.

In the dark, Layla may as well be blind, but she can see with her hand that roams over his shoulder, along his arm. She hums appreciatively at the feeling of his defined muscles.

“You’ve become quite muscular,” she assesses, obviously wanting to change the subject and to warm him up again. “Your training is really paying off.” He tenses up when she brushes over his hip and reaches for his groin.

“Have you ever been so athletic before?” she murmurs all while fondling him. “In Fódlan, I mean…”

He cannot tell if it is her praise or her touch that is getting to him, but he’s aroused again. He can feel her smile against his skin without even turning around.

“I doubt their training methods are any good compared to ours,” she muses. “Was your instructor even good at it…?” She lets the innuendo floats in the silence of the room.

“Layla, please,” Khalid whispers between two groans, “stop it.”

“Stop what?” She feigns ignorance and she bites his shoulder.

He lets out a sigh and fists the sheets. “Stop talking about that.” He groans, half out of exasperation, half out of pleasure. “You know that I hate it.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” she says, and her movements become more frantic. “Just let me give you some advice.”

He doesn’t know what to focus on anymore, but he is tired of listening to her. All she does is speak, all the time, stating the obvious as if she knew everything about his life and his most intimate fears.

“Your feelings…” she continues without ever stopping, “if you won’t talk to me, then you should write them down somewhere. Let them out one way or another. And as for me… Well, I guess I can help you relax in another way…”

Khalid grabs her hand into his and he sets a brutal pace, chasing his release.

He pants heavily, afterwards, his back still turned to her.

“I think you are right,” he says between two breaths, “I should write a diary.”

Layla can barely make up his silhouette in the dark as he stands up to put on a shirt and clean himself. He throws a wet towel at her and he goes looking for something inside his study.

He lights an oil lamp, and he turns around quickly before going through the door. He can tell Layla is pouting. Surely she hoped he would go to sleep and simply forget.

He is grateful that Layla is so understanding and patient with him. But even the kindest souls can reach their limits, and he knows she has a hard time accepting what he does when they finish, when he quickly prepares a bitter potion, and he urges her to drink it.

She did as he wanted without protesting at first, but she started to complain after a while when her friends got pregnant and she remained barren as ever, no matter the number of months passing by and the passionate nights she’s sharing with him. 

“When I become King,” Khalid tells her to appease her furious eyes when he comes back, “I will give you a child. Several, if you wish so. But for now, it’s too dangerous.” 

He leans over the bed to kiss her brow, but she backs away.

When he becomes King. Layla wants to trust his judgement, but she wonders sometimes if he’s really aware of the task at hand.

It is true that his schemes are slowly seducing the court and earning him the respect of even his brothers, she will not deny it, but there is something uncanny about the way he trains restlessly and studies all night long. She saw him, alone in his study, surrounded by books and so focused he would forget to even eat. She spied on him, training in the gardens with the stars as his sole companions when he couldn’t find sleep. It’s becoming hard to tell if he’s truly chasing after this dream he confided to her one night, bathed in the afterglow, or if he is just running away from something else entirely.

And while she likes him—or rather enjoy him—when he is around, it is not _love_. She knows he shares the same feelings; they both know it. Part of her always hoped that with time, they would grow fond of each other, but instead, they are growing apart. In the intimacy of their room, they blow hot and cold.

And so, they argue once again, and it is too one-sided to really call it a fight. She says she will always support him no matter what, but that bearing his child would surely help them find balance and secure him a more powerful position in the succession. That her friends are starting to ask questions, that they remind her ever so often that marrying a sterile man is decent grounds for divorce.

She wants to trust him, but Khalid’s determination has no equal but his stubbornness. He never backs down. Preoccupied by his demons and his ambitions, all intertwined so viciously he seems to lose ground sometimes, he hardly hears her anymore. Most of the time, she might as well be transparent to him. All he has on his lips are the throne and the name of that woman, Byleth, who broke him but somehow still obsesses him.

When they are done screaming at each other, she winces at the dull pain in her limbs. Khalid hands her the vial without adding another word, his eyes implacable.

Of course, he told her many times that she could just leave, should she wish so, and that he would hold no harsh feelings for her. He meant it. But as usual, Layla grabs the vial, and she drinks its content with a grimace he cannot see.

When he becomes King. She can give him another year or two. But from this day on, their nights will be spent in separate beds.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

_Imperial Year 1187 / 2151—Almyran Calendar / Spring_

Khalid sits alone under an orange tree, in one of the many gardens of the palace. The sun is barely up and as always, he was awoken way before it first appeared on the horizon.

Last night, he got caught in one of these discussions that he hates, but he’s pretending to enjoy thoroughly. It happens every time a new face shows itself in the palace, every time there is something to celebrate, every time someone with a mouth loud enough is too intoxicated. He has to recount his military prowess.

Layla caressed his arm and she urged him on, feigning adoration. She isn’t just a good doctor, she’s also an excellent actress and she never misses the opportunity to paint her husband in a good light, even now they barely speak to each other anymore in private.

She is right in her constant efforts to make him the star of the court and they’ve been paying off, but it still doesn’t sit well with him. He hates talking about the war, hates pretending it was anything but a sour defeat for him. But in Almyra, victory and glory are all relative concepts, and a win is a win as long as you are alive to tell the story.

And so, Khalid complied, and he played the part. He jumped on the table and recounted his _brilliant achievements_ under the cheers of a bunch of people drunk on alcohol and blood. When he was done, he unbuttoned his shirt and he showed them the red stripes on his chest; they applauded in response. They saw him like a hero when he felt more like a court jester.

He left the party early, and of course, he couldn’t find sleep.

He used to wake up early every morning to meditate, no matter how little he’d slept the night before. He never was a believer of the common faith, but he could value this tradition. It helped him stay concentrated, focused, and in control of his emotions. Grounded. No matter how upset, how sad and how angry he would be, sat in front of his firepot, eyes closed and clear of mind, he always managed to find peace.

But this was all before the war… And while he’s only been back in Almyra for almost two years now, it feels like it was in another lifetime. The fight for the throne is more of a long-distance run than a sprint, requiring perfect control and heavy work, day after day, double-guessing every word, every action. Still, with the years came experience, and his life in Fódlan as the head of the Alliance taught him some important lessons to accommodate his dissidents. It was an uphill battle, but he did well.

He picks a flat stone on the ground and he throws it at a pond nearby. He was never good at skipping stones; it simply sinks. He sighs and sits on the edge of the pond, rolls up his sleeve and plunges his arm into the fresh water to retrieve the stone. He’d rather not infuriate the gardener again.

He looks at his reflection in the water, and he sees a perplexed face looking back at him as he remembers playing this game with Leonie. She’d manage to make several rebounds with ease, and she’d make good fun of him and what she called his “two left hands”. She didn’t understand how he could be so good with a bow, and yet such an awkward mess when it came to everything else.

He lets out a sigh. Fódlan is only the second part of his plan. He doesn’t have to think about it right now, it’s useless to sort these feelings until he secures the throne in Almyra. He knows it, and yet, the thought is still there, at the back of his mind every day, every time he’s left alone, and this morning isn’t any exception.

He’s afraid he’ll stutter one day, and his true goal are revealed too soon. More frightening perhaps, he’s afraid that the fire burning inside him will consume him whole if he doesn’t manage to extinguish it. The more they remind him of the war, the worse it gets.

So, almost reluctantly, now that it’s so early there is no one to witness it and the memory of the night before and its contrariety are still fresh in his mind, he searches his pocket and gets out a sheet of paper and a pen.

 _You should write down your feelings_.

Layla brings it up every time he is visibly upset. She likes to run her mouth, but right now, he is angry enough he’s willing to give it a try.

 _A rich merchant from Albinea arrived yesterday_ , he starts to write.

He looks at his words and he feels stupid. Yet, he perseveres.

_He wanted to sell weapons and information. I heard they want to open a new trade route as well, but I’m always left out of the loop when it comes to these things._

Is it all there is to this process, he wonders? To complain about petty things? No, of course not.

 _The man also carried a missive with him,_ he continues. _The woman who wrote it claimed she was the sole survivor of House Fraldarius, forced to exile ever since the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus fell during the war. She asked for hospitality, and for the opportunity to take her revenge on the Empire. The royal messenger read the letter aloud to Darius and everyone laughed. Even Tiana._

Khalid lifts his head and looks at the sky which is slowly turning blue.

 _I laughed as well._ _I didn’t want to stand out. This woman doesn’t know anything about Almyra, she doesn’t even know the name of our king, but she still wrote to him, begging like a dog for his protection. As if a common enemy were enough to bury centuries of shared hatred…_ _This is why they laughed. She embodies everything they hate about Fódlan._

_They threw away the letter in a fire pit and immediately forgot about it. I watched as the paper got consumed and turned to ashes; and with it all the hopes of this woman, as if they never mattered at all._

His eyes are itching, and he scrubs them with the back of his hand.

_~~Should they suspect my true intentions, they’d probably hang me~~ _ _._

Khalid crosses out that last sentence several times right after he wrote it, as if committing these words to paper was already too dangerous. He folds the paper and carefully stores it inside a pocket near his heart.

The sun is completely up now, and the cicadas have started to sing. He stretches up and as he stands up, he realises that he doesn’t feel any different from before. He looks at the flat stone he retrieved from the pond earlier, and he thinks about the Fraldarius woman again. Without a proper answer from the Almyran court, she will probably look for help somewhere else and surely, one day, she will find someone stupid enough to be dragged in her revenge.

Revenge… She thought they would be able to relate to her, but they didn’t. They didn’t care at all. Worse, _he_ didn’t care, when perhaps he should have. Didn’t the Empire wrong him all the same? Isn’t he seeking revenge as well?

He catches his breath. Maybe Layla was right after all. Maybe writing things down is helping him clear his mind. He sits down again and rereads his words.

 _No. We are not the same_ , he thinks. _The Empire and the Empire only is to blame for her misery. She bore no responsibility in what happened to her family. This is what upsets her. She is a victim._

The ink gets blurry on the paper and the words fade away, unreadable, diluted by the tears flowing out of his eyes before he can stop them.

“But I’m different,” Khalid whispers.

Byleth is a scapegoat. If it had not been her, then it would have been someone else. If not Edelgard, another ambitious general. War was brewing. The situation would have exploded, and if not by her hands, by Rhea’s, by Gloucester’s, by Dimitri’s… Heck, by his own, for all he knows. It was inevitable.

But there is only one reason why fearful Ignatz and busy Leonie deployed, only one reason why hopeless Lysithea and stubborn Hilda went to war. And that reason is him. He entered their lives like a tornado, and he disturbed their precious balance. He led politics that put them into that awkward position in the first place.

None of them belonged on a battlefield, but they went anyway, because they believed in a carefully fabricated version of him, a Khalid, no, a _Claude_ full of confidence and charismatic. A leader worth dying for. Unaware of his true self, oblivious to his true intentions, they went to fight for him. And they died. In this conflict, he cannot solely paint himself as a victim, not when he also shares his part of guilt.

He hears the voices of his brothers walking below the arches as they go prepare for their morning training and he hides his tearful face between his hands, torn between the relief of knowing he will never walk the bloody path of revenge, and the realisation that the answer to his torment can only ever come from within him.

It cannot just be his fight anymore, the dream of a lonely child who wanted to change the world. If they died for him, then the least he can do is make up for it. Make these dreams he never dared telling them a reality. And if the lie they died for can turn into something beautiful, then perhaps, even if it will never erase his sins, perhaps it will at least appease his mind.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

_Imperial Year 1189 / 2152—Almyran Calendar / Winter_

Parchments and books are all piled up on the central desk of the library.

Khalid massages his temples, then his eyes. He’s been working there for several hours, and barely took any break.

He loves the place, probably his favourite in the palace actually, but more so when it was all reading about history or legends. Accounts don’t have the same appeal.

He hears quiet steps behind him and recognises her before she even bends over his shoulder to look at his paperwork. “Still there…” Layla murmurs. Her scent is different from usual, Khalid denotes. She’s wearing a new perfume. The fact doesn’t surprise nor upset him. It’s not like he’s against her seeing someone else, actually he quite encouraged her for her own well-being, but he hopes she can stay discreet about it. A public scandal is the last thing they need.

“Well, yes,” he answers, and his voice sounds tired. “Remember when I promised a bunch of resources to Raya at the beginning of the year?”

Layla taps her lips slowly. “Mmh… Fifty acres of agricultural lands near the southern canyon wasn’t it…?”

Khalid nods slowly, looking for some sort of information inside the account book opened in front of him. “Among other things…” he murmurs, lost in his thoughts. “But I think I got something wrong… Somewhere… The numbers don’t add up…”

Layla frowns. “Just get an accountant already,” she says. “And don’t look at me like that! I’m not going to do that for you.”

“I would…” Khalid sighs. “But I’d rather not involve more people than necessary… My father’s state is deteriorating by the day, and the throne…”

“ _You_ are also deteriorating,” Layla cuts him. “Four days in a row I keep catching you locked in there. And who knows how many more I missed before that, eh?”

Khalid’s eyes leave the book for a moment to look at Layla instead. She doesn’t even seem really concerned. She’s mainly annoyed. “The throne is the objective, remember?” he says. “I haven’t made all these compromises for so long just to fall flat on my face because some accounting mistake led me to promise more than I can actually give.”

She observes him in silence. “The throne should be the least of your worries,” she says.

“… What are you implying?”

“I’m not stupid, you know. For months, I took care of you when you were on the brink of death. I even wiped off your shit and your vomit all by myself.”

Khalid winces. “Did you really come all the way down there to tell me that?”

“What I’m trying to say is… I’ve seen you naked more times than I can count… And yet, you still acted all prudish near me. Hiding from me.”

“Layla…”

“Did you realise it or was that unconscious? Even back when we still fucked, you never really let me touch you.”

He grinds his teeth and grips his pen so tightly it almost snaps in two. “Back then you sure didn’t sound like it bothered you all that much…” he retorts, his cheeks tinted pink.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming you, Khalid. But you have to realise… You haven’t truly healed. Your physical wounds may have, but not those inside of your brain. As long as you won’t address them properly, you are a ticking bomb, threatening to explode at any moment. And getting the throne won’t save you from this. I’m looking at you, working yourself to the death both in there and on the training grounds, and I’m starting to worry I’ll blow up with you.”

“And what is your solution, then?”

“You left Fódlan with one too many unsolved grudges. Set the record straight with those who offended you.”

“Revenge is something that you want, not me.” He lowers his voice. “I need the Emperor alive. I need peace with Fódlan. We already talked about it.”

She sighs. “And I agreed with you. But what about her shadow? The world won’t crumble if you get her. I know you don’t want to send an assassin after her, but you could just kidnap her. Bring her to the palace and have her face your judgement. You have the power to do it, now. It would help you in many ways. Take your revenge, Khalid.”

 _It won’t solve anything_ , Khalid keeps to himself. Layla wouldn’t understand. He explained it to her many times, and she just never got it. Part of the reason why she agreed to this deal, this loveless masquerade of a marriage, was to avenge her father. He promised he would give it to her, but he’s been moving the deadline more and more. Still, she stayed, and she made one too many compromises for him. He thinks in the end, she probably ended up believing in his dreams as well. Yet, somehow, the idea isn’t as comforting as it should be.

He kisses her.

“What are you doing?” she mutters when he backs off.

“It’s the only way to shut you up.” He eyes behind her back. “And someone’s watching.”

She turns around and looks at the silhouette hiding behind a pillar. “Eh.”

When it is clear they are alone again, Khalid pushes her away.

“These damn rats…” Layla whispers between her teeth.

“You should be used to it by now… Anyway, why are you even here in the first place? Was it only to preach me? Don’t you have some ears to twist somewhere else?”

“Actually, dear husband,” she mocks, “I do. Except it’s yours.”

“And what have I done, this time?”

“You tell me. I overheard Jibril spitting insults about you. Didn’t you meet with him this morning?”

“I… I did.” How could she know about that? Her network never ceased to amaze him. “He said he’d only ever trust me if I raided Fódlan, and we had a heated argument. The audacity…”

“Khalid,” Layla says twisting an eyebrow, exasperated, “where is that silver tongue that made you so famous? People don’t want to hear the truth.” She pocks his chest with her index. “They want you to cater to their needs.”

He shrugs. “I won’t. Not that specific need, anyway.”

“Oh, spare me your gospel. It isn’t as if you haven’t done it before… Don’t tell me you ever told the truth to your precious army back in Fódlan. Don’t tell me they would have followed you if they knew you were from Almyra. You lied then, you can lie now.”

Khalid chews the inside of his cheek to contain his anger. He hates when she talks about them that way, as if they were merely pawns to him. What does she know about them? What does she know about _him_? Perhaps she bought into his vision, but she fails to understand why he is the way he is in the first place.

“This is precisely why I don’t want to do it again,” he says, his words surpassing his thoughts.

“But it worked!” Layla shouts a bit too loud. “It worked! So, what changed? Where is the difference?”

“ _I_ am different!”

He slams his hand on the table and he breathes heavily as she observes him with a somewhat condescend air. She shrugs.

“I know better than to try to convince you,” she says. “But think about it. You will not win this fight without playing dirty. In your hurry, you just lost the support of someone you won’t be able to buy back. And there are only so many people you can convince. Your father is getting weaker by the day. The clock is ticking.”

She leaves the room, and he remains alone and angry in front of his paperwork.

In the span of three years, he put up significant efforts and managed to earn the allegiance of many people. He knows his name should figure on his father’s will, which should give him the edge and further legitimacy to the throne… But the situation is still too precarious when Xerxes detains such a big army. This is why he’s been spending the last year or so trying to seduce more people, acting bolder and yes, he can admit it, perhaps too carelessly.

And now that he pissed off Jibril, who’ll probably be all too happy to run to Xerxes, only one major fence-sitter remains.

He crumples the papers where he had started to write all sorts of promises to Jibril. He takes a new one and reaches for a pen.

This one won’t be easy to sway. He will need to fabricate an intricate lie to convince him. He will also have to offer him money, lots of it. And probably also of some his precious wyverns, and a few lands.

He gulps and looks at the red notebook where he now writes his thoughts and that truly never leaves his side ever since that morning, near the pond.

 _I will sell him the bloodiest, most decadent dream_ , he thinks as he starts writing his letter. _And when I’m king, I can just dispose of him and bury the secret with him forever._

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Tiana closes the doors of the royal chambers carefully, as if to make as little sound as possible. She doesn’t know why she’s bothering: the King, her husband, Darius, has been dying for weeks and he’s barely conscious anymore. She wishes that simply slamming a door would bring him back.

He is the love of her life, but she has no time to feel sorry for herself. In his absence, she is the one in charge of managing the country and, considering the circumstances, the situation is extremely dire.

It isn’t that she doesn’t believe in her son Khalid. He has, after all, achieved more in three years than she could have possibly imagined. She helped him in his endeavour but downplaying his own actions would not be fair to him. He is the one who came back from the dead and managed to make a name for himself in the court when the odds were all but against him. But will that be enough?

With every new day, she hears rumours. Accidental deaths that sound much more like assassinations. Troops moving near the eastern border. People who whisper in the many corridors and gardens of the palace as she passes by. War is brewing. They were always prepared for it—Khalid remains too much of an outsider to be accepted easily by the court—but she isn’t so sure they will actually be able to win this fight.

When Darius dies—bless his poor soul—and his last letter reveals the name of Khalid of Almyra, some clans will pledge allegiance to him, and others will oppose him. A clash will ensue, blood will flow, and she doesn’t know if his allies will be enough to top his enemies.

She has a horse prepared every morning, just in case she will have to flee Almyra quickly. She knows that without Khalid on the throne, she might as well be dead in the following day. She urged Layla to do the same, for she knows the young woman would rather die than have her clan pledge allegiance to Xerxes, and she told her that she had already made the arrangements.

Tiana sighs, walking through the Palace, empty and dark at this hour of the night. She tried to talk to Khalid about it, but her son was mostly dismissive, if not entirely focused on his work. Sometimes she wonders if relying so much on him was a good idea. If preferring the dull Shervin wouldn’t have been a safer choice.

Speaking of the devil, she finds Khalid leaned on a wall, sited on the floor.

“What are you doing?” she pests, running towards him. “If someone sees you like that…!”

Khalid doesn’t answer. His eyes are wide open, and he looks distressed.

“Khalid!” she shouts, covering her mouth a bit too late to be discreet.

He turns his head to her, finally acknowledging her existence, and he grins.

“I just came back from Shushan,” he says.

“Shushan…?”

“I met with Arsham.”

“At this hour of the night…? Don’t tell me you tried to convince him again…”

“I did.” He nods, almost insolent.

“Didn’t I tell you many times that this greedy bastard was impossible to sway? That it would just antagonise you? So close to the succession, it’s…”

Khalid doesn’t seem to listen to her at all, as she shouts and he’s simply staring at the opposite wall in front of him.

“I told you I did it,” he cuts her, his voice strangely calm. “I convinced him to lend me his strength.”

Tiana takes a step back. Khalid is not in his normal state. He looks drunk, all sweaty and trembling. A terrible feeling settles in her guts.

She grabs his arm forcefully and drags him inside the nearest room. She slams the door behind them.

“What did you tell him, Khalid?” she almost shouts at him, pushing him against the door.

“You are right,” Khalid says, grinning. “He really is a greedy bastard.”

“Khalid!”

He shakes his head. “I offered gold, lands, women… And he still wouldn’t budge.”

“What did you promise him…” she hisses, her eyes full of fear.

Khalid looks at his mother’s hands, still firmly holding his shirt. “He wanted me to prove my allegiance to Almyra,” he murmurs. “That I wasn’t just a spawn of Fódlan.” He diverts his eyes. “So, I gave him some secret intel,” he says.

“You didn’t—”

“I did,” Khalid cuts her, now chasing her eyes with a defiance she didn’t know he had into him. “I gave him the plans of the Locket.”

Tiana releases her grip. She shakes her head in denial. “You are crazy,” she murmurs. “Your father chose a crazy son…!”

Khalid hits his chest. “I’m not stupid!” he says. “I made sure he wouldn’t air the secret. We made a blood pact, and you know no Almyran would break this sort of oath! He even gave me some precious information in return to prove his good faith.”

Khalid walks in circles in the room, gesticulating.

“Did you know that Xerxes has already started to gather an army?” he says when his mother doesn’t look more convinced by his arguments. “He reunited with the northern clan and he plans to raid the city on the day the succession is announced, if not earlier. I immediately had Shervin monitor him.”

He goes back to Tiana, and he secures his hands on her shoulders.

“It’s done, mum,” he says with a softer voice. “It’s over. My army will outnumber Xerxes’ by ten thousand men. _Ten thousand_ , can you imagine!? I made all calculations, took everything into account. The throne is mine.”

Tiana gulps. “Then why are you shaking?” she says. Before he can answer, she pushes him away and leaves the room, slamming the door behind her.

Khalid stays alone in silence. He was never one to leave things to chance. He is right. He knows he is.

_Judith. Ignatz. Leonie._

_Lysithea, Hilda…_

_Nader…_

“I did it,” he says, and when the words leave his lips so does the weight plumbing his stomach.

He looks at his shaky hands.

He understands Tiana’s worries. Despite the years and despite her hatred for her family, part of her never left Fódlan. She helped preserve that fragile balance between the two countries for years. To give away that information was a risky move, but it only represents a danger for Fódlan if someone decides to act on it—and, of course, he has no intention to. And it was necessary. A lie, after all, is only convincing when there is part of truth to it.

Khalid clenches his fists, and he takes deep inspirations to calm himself, but the tremors won’t stop. Just excitement, he decides, relegating his fears, his nightmares and his ghosts in the back of his head.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

_Imperial Year 1190 / 2153—Almyran Calendar / Summer_

The name figuring on Darius’ ultimate letter surprises no one:

_Prince Khalid of Almyra, son of King Darius III of Almyra and of Queen Tiana_

Darius made his intentions clear four years ago, on the day they formed this triumvirate inside Khalid’s recovery room. Khalid still cannot help but feel relieved. You can never be too cautious.

As custom wants, they have reunited in the throne room thirty days after the King’s burial, to read his succession wishes. There is more than Khalid’s name in there; he also talks about the sort of future he wants for Almyra, the type of politics he’s dreaming of. None of this is binding in any way, so, at the mention of Khalid’s name, time seems to stop for a minute, and everyone observes him in silence.

Layla moves first, but everyone already expected her to. She gets on her knees in front of him, and she salutes him, her forehead touching the cold stone of the marble floor.

“My King,” she says.

Khalid smiles. “King”, how sweet does it sound to his ears… He takes her hand and helps her to get back up. She takes her place to his left, the place of her wife, the place of a queen. Tiana stands on his right. The three of them observe the crowd, catching their breath.

They dispatched troops the day before to watch after Xerxes’ own army that they know has formed near the capital. No blood had to be spilled, for their foe remained calm.

Shervin is the second one to come close, then Firoz. Like Layla, they kneel in front of their brother, and they pledge allegiance to him. This isn’t a surprise either, though Khalid cannot help but think of how difficult this could have got had Salim been alive.

Xerxes observes him from the back of the room. They barely know each other. The man is about fifteen years older than him, his long hair intricately styled and scars all over his face and his bare arms. He doesn’t move, his eyes are dark but there is a small smile on his lips.

Then Arsham moves forward and something in Xerxes’ expression changes. Khalid grins to himself. The general is surprised. Panicked. He didn’t expect the lord of fence-sitting, as he likes to call him, to openly support the half-Fódlani prince. No one expected it, actually, and a slow murmur is heard in the room.

They do not know what his allegiance cost to Khalid, and it’s better that way. After him, as if his display of respect had opened the floodgates of a dam, the crowd springs to life and, one after another, they all present themselves before Khalid, kiss his hand and bow down.

He feels powerful in that instant and, it is true, revengeful. He wonders how many of them are doing this against their will, only in hope it will secure them a good position in the court and he will spare them after years spent spitting on his face. How humiliated they must feel. He revels in the situation.

Unexpectedly, neither Xerxes nor his followers have moved a single finger, though. Not doing so will turn them into rebels, enemies to the crown of Almyra. Tiana is convinced the general will not go down without a fight, but it doesn’t take much to see he wouldn’t stand a chance.

 _Enjoy your moment of glory while it lasts_ , Khalid thinks as he watches the man delighting on the attention now fully turned to him. Even when he gravels to his feet, even if he pledges loyalty, gives him the head of his children, Khalid has no intention to let the man live. Oh, he can give him a month or two, but ultimately…

Xerxes moves, at last, but only by a few metres. He clears his throat.

“Khalid!”

Well, that makes his stance clear enough.

“I am wise enough to recognise a loss for what it is,” he says, “and I’d be more than happy to kiss your royal feet…”

He grins, Khalid’s eyes fixed on him, trying to decipher his intentions.

“However,” he continues, “I want to make sure. I wouldn’t want us all to support the wrong man, see.”

“Make sure of what?” Khalid answers, his voice perhaps too dry to sound anything but insecure.

“I’ve seen your wits at work,” the general says. “You are a brilliant politician. I mean, you even managed to seduce Arsham…”

The old man shoots him a dark gaze, some other people refrain a laugh at the jest. “But Almyra is a wild, hot-blooded lady. Our king cannot be all words. He needs to be a fierce warrior as well. I think many of us would be more than happy to see what you are really capable of. Not just in words. In actions.”

_That damn rat…!_

Khalid takes some time to think his answer through—but not too much either, so he doesn’t sound suspicious.

“Xerxes, why do you think no one but you brought up the question?” Khalid says, trying to tune down the disdain in his voice. “I’ve already proved myself worthy many times. Haven’t you heard? I won the annual hunt three times in a row. And many before you came to challenge me over the years. I never failed once.”

People nod in the crowd, no doubt the same people who tested him in the past.

“What left is there for me to prove?” he says. “That I can ride a wyvern?”

The assembly laughs. Khalid is the best archer in Almyra, no one could possibly deny it. Yet, Xerxes speaks again.

“Ah, but see, Khalid, the problem is _I_ didn’t see it. And I think Arsham and Raya neither, as remote as we are from the capital. Call me old-fashioned, but I only believe in what I can see with my own two eyes.”

Khalid stays unstirred. Xerxes is simply playing a game. His goal isn’t to discredit him, but it is a test, to see how he responds to provocation. To check if he is a proud Almyran, or just a Fódlani coward. Of course, it’s also probably a trap.

That’s what Khalid feels in his mother’s eyes without even looking at her. _He’s trying to make me lose control._

“That sounds fair,” he answers. “So, tell me, what can I do to appease your worries?” He stresses the last word. He’d never miss the opportunity to mock _Xerxes the Fearless_.

But the general doesn’t lose composure; instead he approaches the throne. Khalid hears metal clattering as his guards put their hands on their weapons.

Xerxes stops in front of him and he hands him over a letter.

“Nothing, really,” he says with a carnivorous smile. “Just an archery contest, to show us your prowess. A piece of cake for you. See it as a formality.”

He inclines his head briefly and takes two steps back.

Intrigued, Khalid opens the letter. It is indeed as Xerxes described it, an invitation to a shooting contest. He skims through it until he reaches the long list of rules. Moving targets, on an exposed field. Six arrows for five targets. On wyvern back. His men are allowed to check the targets for any irregularities.

It seems fair, and he trusts his skills. He’s never been a better shot in his entire life. For four years, he prepared for this moment.

“I accept,” he says, and the audience cheers.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Khalid winces when they adjust the straps around his chest. He’s wearing the same breastplate Nader gifted him during the war. Every Almyran prince owns one, exactly fit to their size, but Khalid is much more muscular than he used to be, and it’s almost too adjusted now.

 _Not that it will make a difference_ , he thinks, watching himself in a mirror as his servants step back.

Still, he chose to wear it after all these years as a symbol, and on his mother’s recommendation. It’s the same armour he was wearing on the day he made his fake, triumphal comeback to Almyra.

Wyvern tanned leather and black silk with yellow linings. His family’s colour is green, but back when the tailor came to Derdriu in secret to take his measurements, he had asked for yellow fabric in reference to the Leicester Alliance. Their colours, and his birthplace’s design. The best of both worlds; a bit like him. Plus, he finds that he looks better in yellow.

He adjusts his quiver one last time, and he looks at himself. He will be twenty-eight this year. Time sure flew by. When he was his age, his father had already been king for almost ten years, and he already had two sons—and probably a bunch of bastards as well. It was way before he met Tiana, before Fódlan was anything but the enemy in his mind. No doubt he would have never expected to father a Fódlani boy at that time, nor that the same boy would one day succeed him on the throne.

 _Patience is a virtue_ , Khalid reminds himself. Truth to be told, he doesn’t look that much different from the last time he wore that armour. His hair got slightly longer, and he styled it the Almyran way, with braids and gems, but that is the extend of it. Physically, he is the same. Mentally…

Layla enters the tent and dismisses the servants with her hand.

“Khalid,” she says, skipping the introductions, “I’m done with the checks you asked me.”

She is sweating, also wearing training robes. She was never the best with a bow, but she’s far from bad at it either. The rules stated that he was allowed to have someone verify the targets, and he decided to send her for the task. “Everything looked fine to me,” she says, still a bit out of breath. “Of course, the shots are incredibly difficult, but nothing you haven’t faced before. I hope.”

“Good, thank you,” he says, observing the way the light is reflected on his earring. Something else that never changed. “Tiana?”

“She’s still keeping an eye on them. We haven’t seen them doing anything suspicious so far.”

“Then what with this face?” he asks her, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror. She looks worried.

“Listen, it’s… It’s too suspicious.”

Khalid chuckles. “You really sound like me, you know that?”

He turns around and rests a hand on her shoulder. “I’d trust you and my mother with my life. Actually, I _am_ trusting you with my life, quite literally.”

“And ours as well,” she hisses.

“Sure. But what I’m trying to say is that I have faith in your judgement. If you saw no irregularities, then it’s because there is none.”

“Still,” she sighs, “it’s suspicious, isn’t it?”

Khalid shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe Xerxes just never expected me to follow through with this contest. Or maybe he’s severally underestimating me. Wouldn’t be the first.”

A horn blows outside.

“Come on,” he says. “It’s time to take that throne.”

When he leaves the tent and the crowd cheers him on, he isn’t intimidated. He was born to shine, and this is his moment.

He sits on his mount, his dear white wyvern, companion of many hardships, and he assesses the wind. It is strong and the air is charged with humidity, as they are near the sea. Layla was underselling the challenge; Xerxes didn’t go easy on him. Still, he knows he fought in more difficult conditions in the past. He isn’t afraid. He looks at his mother below in the crowd and he nods. Then, he eyes at Xerxes, sat on a chair, surrounded by his confidants, and he smiles at him cockily.

 _Just you wait and see_ , he thinks.

The horn blows again, and Khalid orders his wyvern to take off. He rises and rises until the crowd is way below him, at around forty metres in the air. There are no human noises anymore up there, no laughs and not chattering. Only the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs, of the winds slapping his cheeks and of the low grunts of his wyvern. And there is his heartbeat as well, loud, so loud, but calm despite the stakes.

They release two targets at first, very small disks made of clay and attached to hot air balloons. They rise until they arrive at his altitude, swinging from left to right in the strong wind.

Khalid knows everyone is watching him, eyes glued to their binoculars. He expires and blocks his respiration. He wants to impress them from the start.

Khalid picks not one, but two arrows in his quiver. He murmurs something to his wyvern, and he bends his bow. He cannot hear the crowd, but he is sure they are all gasping when his mount makes a loop, and he shots down the two targets in a row, head upside down. The clay disks shatter and the balloons rise to disappear inside the clouds above him. Xerxes forgot that above all, Khalid is also a great entertainer.

Three more targets to go, and four arrows left. They release them, and Khalid focuses again. It will be harder to be impressing and efficient, this time around. But a tailspin could do it. He pets his wyvern slowly, murmurs sweet words to her attention. None of this would be possible without her and their indestructible bond. He prepares himself, standing up in his stirrup.

There’s a shot down below announcing the start of the countdown. The sound echoes through the sky and reverberates on the cliffs to reach Khalid’s ears.

Perhaps it’s the pressure that had been building up, perhaps it’s the smell of powder mixed with that of the spindrift. Perhaps it’s the sound, loud and metallic of the canon.

Something snaps inside him.

Khalid ignores the red flags. He takes his third arrow, and he knows his posture is too stiff, but he still shoots it.

He aimed too high, and instead of reaching the target, the arrow flies through the sky. He blinks, and his vision is coloured with a hundred lights, flickering all around him. He finds it hard to breathe, hard to focus, hard so see. His hands, crippled around his gear, make it hard to reach for another arrow. He knows he’s losing the control of his body.

His wyvern feels his discomfort and emits a low, worried growl, but Khalid cannot hear it above the strident whistling in his ears. Hot, panicked, _lost_ in a second that is stretching up to an eternity, he glances over the ground. The crowd seems changed. He doesn’t see his mother and he cannot find Layla either. Everyone is familiar, but none are people who should be there. All he hears are the waves, and the screams, screams that shouldn’t belong to this peaceful landscape either. Screams of pain, high-pitched and desperate, resonating in his ears.

“It’s been fun, Claude… I’m sorry to go so soon…”

“Hilda!!”

Khalid reaches for the straps on his armour and he painfully tries to loosen them so he can breathe better. He feels sweat running down his back, and he also sees the three targets, still rising up more and more, almost out of reach now.

He shoots and by three times, he misses the targets. It was an easy shot for him, one he would have made with closed eyes years ago, and he misses. He watches them fly away, blown away by the wind, high up in the sky, and he simply drops his bow, that goes crashing on the ground below.

He curls up, hitting his head against his saddle, and he cries and cries again, unable to stop the tears from flowing out of his eyes, unable to stop the tremors in his hands, unable to block the screams in his ears and the wails escaping through his lips.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry”

He pleads again and again, for forgiveness and for the screams to stop, and when they finally do, all he’s left with is the crushing realisation that he failed his test.

When he lands, he’s only welcomed by a dead silence.

His feet touch the ground, and all catch their breath when they see the big, round tears flowing down his cheeks. The whole crowd gasps, even Xerxes, quite literally on the edge of his sit.

They couldn’t possibly know what happened up there, but never could they have imagined seeing this proud prince reduced to a crying mess in the matter of a few minutes, all lost and distressed like a child.

Khalid walks quickly, head turned to his feet, too panicked to really feel ashamed, and he pushes them away so he can escape the circle they’ve made around his mount.

“Khalid!

“Khalid, wait!”

Layla rushes to his side as the crowd starts leaving their catatonic state and share their indignation.

“It wasn’t me, Khalid!” Layla shouts at him completely panicked, but he’s not even looking at her. “I swear I checked everything I could… It was perfect, I…!”

“Layla is telling the truth!”

It’s Tiana, this time on his right, trying her best not to lose composure. “She is loyal to you! You have to believe her! She didn’t trick you!”

Khalid keeps on walking, no one knows where, not even himself, and he hears the crowd getting more and more agitated behind him, in the distance.

“Khalid plea—”

“I know,” he mutters between his teeth, tears still flowing freely out of his red eyes.

“Then what?” Layla asks him. “What did he do? Did he poison you? Did he sabotage your bow?!”

“No.”

Khalid stops walking all of a sudden, and he shudders. “It’s exactly as you saw yourself. Everything was perfect. Xerxes had no trick in mind. It was a fair challenge.”

“Then, what happened? What went wrong?” Tiana whispers.

“Me,” he says.

Layla was correct. He was a ticking bomb, and he blew up.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Historians will say that Khalid of Almyra could have recovered from the humiliation he suffered that day. It was, after all, only a few missed arrows after years and years proving himself worthy of the throne both in wits and in power.

What the Almyrans could never forgive, however, was the way he behaved in the hours and days that followed. He locked himself inside his room and wouldn’t come out. He wouldn’t eat either wouldn’t answer any call, not even from his own wife.

Layla slammed on his door, imploring him to let her in. It was a shameful attitude, but they were way past the point where it could possibly matter.

Khalid humiliated himself, and by failing to face his opponent or to find the proper comeback expected from a king, he effectively destroyed his credibility. Even his most trusted allies are thinking twice about displaying their support to him. Who wouldn’t? Who would support a king breaking down at the smallest difficulties?

Layla, of course, knows that this humiliation isn’t true to his character. Khalid went through hell and beyond to be able to be in this position in the first place, and he never complained, not even once. This is why she stayed, and why she still slams on his door, even when her own men have turned their backs to her, even when Xerxes’ troops are growing larger and are marching on the capital. And despite the danger, Tiana stayed as well.

Finally, when they almost had lost hope, they hear the locks clack, and the door opens.

Khalid stands in his bedroom that looks like more of a warzone now, the curtains closed, and his things scattered all around the place. The women close the door carefully behind them.

With no surprise, Khalid looks like hell. His eyes are red, his hair all tangled. He hasn’t even taken off his armour.

“I fucked up,” he says. His voice is hoarse from screaming. “I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.”

“What is wrong with you…?” Tiana hisses. She was never the gentlest mother out there, and his failure puts her at risk as well. Her reaction was to be expected, but it still hurts him.

Khalid lowers his head. “It’s too much,” he says.

Layla stops Tiana before she can add something. She rests a hand on his shoulder. “What is too much, Khalid?” she asks with a small voice.

“All of this,” he sobs, wriggling his hands awkwardly. “I… I cannot stop hearing them…”

“Hearing who?” she whispers all while knowing the answer.

“Lysithea … and Hilda … and…”

“Are you still glooming about that?” Tiana cuts him. She pushes Layla away. “I’m tired of you. How long will it be until you finally accept that soldiers go to combat ready to die? That war means death? Are you really that naïve?”

Khalid shakes his head and scraps his skull, almost to the blood. “They weren’t soldiers,” he whines. “They were there for me…” He almost cries again, but he’s trying his best not to, so he doesn’t give that satisfaction to his mother. “They died… Not for the Alliance, for me…!”

If Khalid excepted comfort from his mother, then surely he was naïve indeed since instead, she slaps him.

“Get over yourself!” she screams at him. “What did you expect when you went playing the nobleman and leader in Fódlan? When you tried to be king? Strong people don’t cry! Leaders don’t cry! Did you see me cry your father when he died!?”

It’s not the same, it’s not the same at all, but her hypocrisy barely surprises him. Tiana always loved to play the warrior, the strong lady. She would boast about the day she sparred against Nader and won. And it is true that she is a fantastic battler, but it doesn’t mean she really ever set a foot on a proper battlefield, nor that she witnessed the horrors of war the way he did. She remains a noble at heart, one whose path simply deviated slightly from the norm by marrying the wrong guy. She never cared about the consequences of her actions, nor about the fact her little boy wasn’t meant for this sort of existence in the first place.

“I didn’t raise a quitter!” she still shouts at him.

 _That’s because you didn’t raise me at all_ , Khalid keeps to himself, shooting daggers with his eyes.

If her anger has one merit, it is to fuel his own and cast away his crushing sadness.

“You have to fix this, now,” Tiana tells him. “Forget about your dead friends, you put _us_ in a dangerous position.” She points at Layla, who has stayed quiet. Khalid wonders if she also thinks the same about him. He never was up to her expectations in anything.

“I know,” he says. “What do you think I was doing locked in there…?”

He drags his feet to his study and reappears with a letter in his hands. It is sealed with wax, and imprinted on it, his crest.

He hands it to Layla and she opens it without saying a word. She reads it carefully.

“This is…” she murmurs after a while.

“Your way out,” he says.

“But Khalid, none of this is true! It’s slandering!”

“Is it?” he asks, mysterious. “Listen, as long as you are associated with me, you will be in danger. I’ve failed you. Not just as a liege… As a husband as well. This letter only reflects that. So, take it, and save your life. You are free, now.”

“Why… Why would I do that?” she shouts. “I know what marrying you entailed!”

“Nothing is binding us, Layla,” Khalid says with a soft voice. “No marriage and no children. We have nothing in common. You are simply there because of your father, and I wasn’t even able to grant you that revenge you wanted so much. I never had any intention to, if I’m honest with you…”

“Khalid is this the reason why you—”

He cuts her with a finger on her lips. “I’m sorry things had to turn out this way,” he whispers. “I know there is this guy near the southern border whom you love. You should go and find him again. Be happy with him.”

“Come with me…” she says. She turns her head to Tiana. “With us… We could protect you.”

He doesn’t answer.

“It was never truly about the throne, wasn’t it…?” Tiana says, her eyes sharp. She seems to have calmed down. “I cannot force you to come with us, but keep this in mind, my son: something is only worth chasing when it truly exists. If not, then you are just running after ghosts.”

Khalid smiles, and Tiana sees the confidence in this one.

“Eh, didn’t you say it yourself? That I was ambitious? Don’t worry, I don’t plan to give up right there. I have more than one string to my bow.”

She squints.

“Promise me something…” Layla says, holding his letter close to her heart. “Stay alive. Xerxes will die one day. If not in war, then by the hands of someone greedier than him. And people will forget about you. There will come a time when you can walk down these streets again and they won’t recognise you. When that time comes… Please, contact me. Not as a prince, not as a king, not as a husband. Simply as Khalid.”

He nods.

Layla still doesn’t understand. She never did. She doesn’t get that it is not about his dreams anymore, that it probably hasn’t been for a long time. Those dreams, if he’s honest with himself, they died long before he missed those targets. He lost from the get-go, back in the officer’s academy, on the day the Sword of the Creator slipped through his fingers. All he’s been doing ever since is trying to salvage a sinking ship with a bucket with a hole in it.

“I’ll reunite with you later,” he still promises without meaning a word.

They leave in a hurry and he stays alone in his room.

Slowly, he undresses himself. He takes off his armour, and he arranges it carefully on his bed. When he walks past the big mirror rested again the wall, he stops in front of it and he observes his naked body. Is this what it looks like, to hit rock-bottom…? But if he were truly king, wouldn’t this simply be the body of a true, honourable warrior instead of that of a loser?

He reaches the bathroom next door, and he cleans himself. He takes off the dirt and the sweat from his skin and his hair, and with it he peels off the sadness. He combs his hair and cuts off his braids. When he is finished, he puts on clean clothes and he takes a sword.

As he secures Failnaught on his back, he considers his options. The word that Layla and Tiana have left the capital has probably already spread. He is nothing more than a nuisance, now. Xerxes will try to get rid of him and if it’s not by poisoning his food, then it will be with a silken rope around his throat when he’s asleep. Maybe he should have poisoned the water reserves of the palace days ago and have them all suffer a miserable death, much like he imagined for their Fódlan enemy in this strategy he carefully crafted to impress Arsham.

There are noises coming out of the corridor and they get louder and louder, a mix of words and of clashing steel. There are followed by a silence so deep he can almost hear the breathing of the men standing in front of his closed door. It seems like Xerxes opted for the hard way, then. But he’s ready to take them down. He draws his sword, eyes fixated on the door. He’s ready to survive.

 _They won’t beat me_ , he thinks. _They won’t defeat me. I will prevail_.

But in the dark, deafen by the sound of his own heartbeat and by adrenaline, he loses ground again, and much as he did several days ago, he starts shivering.

They are all dead. He is the only one left and this fight, he knows, has no other outcome than his own death. He swallows when the first blow detonates against his door.

All these years, all this struggle, all these sacrifices, all these deaths, for nothing. He thinks about his red notebook, its weight reassuring against his chest.

He drops his sword from his shaky hands and the noise it makes when it hits the ground is muffles by the carpet.

He reaches for a few gold coins on his nightstand and without thinking about it twice, he slips through the secret passageway behind his bed. The entry closes behind him in a deep grumble. Soon after, he hears his door shattering and the voice of Xerxes cursing at him.

He stays completely still and silent for a while and when he hears them leaving the room, he starts walking. Under Failnaught’s light, the walls around him are painted red like blood.

More than shooting arrows or seducing a crowd, he does what he always did best: he runs away.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

_???? / ???? / ????_

He walks alone inside the crypt. He barely has light anymore, but the pulse of Failnaught is somewhat reassuring against his back and it is all that seems to matter anymore.

He walks alone and he remembers in detail all of the thirty-two long years of his life. There is good in there, but it is mostly struggle. He also remembers all the people who relied on him, and whom he failed to help. Those who loved him, and whom he failed to love back.

He walks until there is nothing left in front of him, nothing but a dark, bottomless abyss where the floor should be.

He stops near the edge and he throws his torch in it. The light disappears, and he doesn’t even hear it hit the ground.

It could swallow him whole, and he thinks that perhaps, it would be for the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Yeah, it's an Almyra chapter. I know some people go ham on the worldbuilding, but I frankly didn't feel like overdoing it when it's not really the focus of the fic. I liked the idea of Almyra being a trainwreck the way the Alliance is, so that Claude/Khalid could actually make good use of his years spent dealing with Gloucester, so I ran with it.
> 
> I don't have strong feelings regarding his parents one way or another, but I've always placed them in the "tried their best but too out of touch to be actually decent at the job" box. 
> 
> Next update is last update. 
> 
> I still think I might be able to upload before 2021, so stay tuned.
> 
> Thank you for your support as always, and happy holidays!


	12. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year to everyone!
> 
> This is the end!
> 
> I feel like this chapter is quite different from the rest of the story, which I guess, makes sense, since it’s the ending… I reworked it a lot because I really didn't want to disappoint and because it was intimidating haha
> 
> Here it is regardless; and come what may.
> 
> Hope you'll enjoy it!

Time, Byleth has come to learn, is a fickle thing.

There are the seconds that stretch into an eternity, and the hours that feel like minutes. And there are the moments when time seems to stop altogether—in her case, sometimes quite literally.

Sothis may have been a goddess, but there were days when it could be difficult to feel like her existence had been more than a delirious dream. Without her voice in her head and without her crest flowing through her veins, Byleth struggled to grasp the memories of her, as if they were nothing more than an ephemeral mist escaping between her fingers. Sothis was a secret she had kept jealously to herself, and when peace settled and Byleth pondered it was maybe finally time to share it with her loved ones, it was already too late for it to truly matter. Everything that once was Sothis was gone, and without her, Byleth was left at the mercy of time.

But if the last memory of Sothis will die with Byleth, the proof of her existence, however, will forever exist in this world, for the words the Goddess pronounced one day set off a chain reaction, altering the history of Fódlan forever.

Even if people would paint it that way, the decision to take Edelgard’s hand was never really about choosing an ideology, nor about justice or revenge. It was about protecting what was dear to Byleth. Her past was tainted red with blood but surrounded by her students, her future looked bright.

So, Byleth picked Edelgard, and she picked her again and again after that, every time she came back to her and every time she followed her orders, no matter how heartbreaking they were. And as she did so, she always obeyed Sothis’ words:

“Swear to cut a path that is your own.”

All this time, and perhaps not always consciously, Byleth lived by these words. And it was easy to forget about them, easier even to simply put the blame of her actions on fate, on her cursed blood, on Rhea.

But since then, many things happened.

In the underground library, Claude told her that he wanted to trust in her resolve when she was so sure she had none. He told her to live with her regrets and remorse, to honour the memory of those who died for her goals. On that day, she remembered Sothis’ words once again and she realised she could be both Edelgard’s beacon of light and the Ashen Demon. Both were parts of herself and by cutting her own path, she had to embrace the good, and the bad.

War and peace. Death and love. Guilt and salvation. There is no way to obtain one without acknowledging the other.

Byleth is aware she is not perfect, but neither is Edelgard and certainly, neither is Claude.

Over the course of these few weeks, she has learnt to see past her prejudices and past her own guilt to look at Claude with honest eyes; the kindness that he hides with false pretences, the sincerity behind all the unsaid words, the hesitation beyond the bravado.

Did Claude ever realise that? That in the end, she followed him because of this, and not because of his intimidating words? It wasn’t a choice made out of pity, and it’s wasn’t really out of guilt either anymore. She decided to follow Claude simply because she wanted to give him the chance she long denied him.

Perhaps Sothis would have scolded her, perhaps she would have told her to save her life instead, to do what she came for in the first place; to take the notebook and leave. But Byleth cannot do that.

Claude is like her, entrapped by his shortcomings, paralysed by fear and by guilt. He asked her to move on, but he cannot let go of the past.

Sitting in the dark in front of the great stair that plunges below, her torch dying at her feet and Claude’s notebook pressed against her chest, Byleth takes her decision.

She will live by Sothis’ words, and by Claude’s. Maybe he will hate her for that. Maybe he simply won’t listen to her. Maybe she will never manage to find him in the first place, and she will die there as well, dragging Edelgard in her fall.

But she doesn’t need to find excuses anymore nor to run away. The choices she made when she picked Edelgard and when she picked Claude were hers, and hers alone. All she needs is the resolve to accept responsibility for them and for their consequences.

Byleth breathes quickly and she feels her heart racing inside her chest; this precious heart Edelgard gave back to her. And this same, beating heart that rendered her useless to Claude’s scheme is also the reason why she finds the strength to stand up.

So, she leans on her sword and her legs feel like jelly below her. There is a distinct, sharp pain in her chest where her rib cracked earlier. Her torch is almost extinguished, and she has lost all notion of time. How long did she stay there, alone in the dark and paralysed by fear…? It does not really matter as she doesn’t even bother picking up her bag and she just runs to the stairs, forgetting about her weariness and her pain. 

She runs, and she runs, slashing the darkness, her breathing short and her body hurting like hell. She bumps into rocks and she hears her steps echoing against the walls. She could easily fall into an abyss or end up face to face with a monster, but she still runs and as she does so, she finally understands the words of the blind woman they met above. When there is nothing left to lose, nothing left to fear, walking in the dark isn’t anything special.

_Where could Claude possibly be…?_

Despite the adrenaline, Byleth’s mind remains quite clear. Claude doesn’t have maps. He should be as lost as she is. She tries to put herself in his place so she can figure out where exactly he went. It’s a risky exercise, but she knows she’s capable of it. She observed him for so long, and observation always was her strongest point. This is what made her popular with her students—she could anticipate their needs and understand their desires.

It is guided by this instinct that Byleth navigates through the ruins. The ornaments on the walls become more and more intricate and esoteric in their design as she progresses. Those are also precious visual clues which she thinks—she _knows_ —Claude followed as well.

Maybe it’s a minute, maybe an hour, or maybe simply a handful seconds before she finally perceives right in front of her a lone, red, bright star.

“Claude!”

The room is wide with a high ceiling, and the floor is torn wide open, leaving no way to progress further. Claude sits on the edge of this pit, his legs dangling slowly, as if he were considering the best next move. When he hears her voice, he turns back and almost falls.

“What are you doing here!?” he yells immediately. He looks genuinely surprised. “I ordered you to leave!”

Byleth’s eyes oscillate between Claude and his distressed face, and the hole. She starts to notice that he has taken off his glasses and most of his equipment, all arranged neatly beside him on the ground. Only Failnaught remains secured on his back with his quiver. A rope is tied around his waist, but the other extremity is simply fastened around the remains of a column. She gulps when she understands his intentions. Even a child would be able to assess the situation for what it is: a hopeless, deadly plan.

Claude stands up slowly, like a prey who doesn’t want to startle their predator, and he makes a step back towards the hole. Byleth doesn’t waste any more time.

Her first reflex is to throw her dagger at the rope and to cut it clear; her second is to jump at Claude before he has the time to launch himself in the abyss.

They both grunt when she crashes onto him and they roll over, so close to the edge for a second Byleth thinks they might be done for.

She has little strength left, but she knows that at this point, Claude isn’t in better condition. They brawled before, and he was no match for her. She straddles him and she turns him over, pinning him to the ground. Claude gesticulates and protests, he curses at her, insults her loved ones in a way so frighteningly uncharacteristic of him, he sounds possessed. Byleth ignores him, compressing her tighs around his waist to lock him in place, and she looks at Failnaught right in front of her.

“Relics,” she murmurs. It all started there, with her crest and with the Sword of the Creator. This weapon that caused so many tragedies became nothing more than an ugly toy when she killed Rhea. This one, too, shall be put to rest.

Byleth grabs the bow and she tries to unfasten it, but Claude is holding unto the straps viciously, groaning below her, and it won’t budge. Her eyes sharpen, focused on the Crest stone. She aims at it instead.

The contact is even worse than her previous experience touching the weapon. The stone is burning hot on her fingers, sending unpleasant ripples through her body. It oozes of curses and wicked energy. Still, Byleth persists and she grips it, scratching her nails to the blood where the stone connects with the bow.

Claude finally manages to extricate himself when Byleth gouges the stone out of the bone-like structure of Failnaught and she almost loses balance in the effort. He turns over just in time to watch the red light flying in the air, then falling down-below, far away, until it’s nothing more than a single dot; until it disappears altogether, swallowed by the abyss.

Claude crawls on the ground, pushing Byleth aside. “No, no, no…!” he wails, and he extends a hand over the edge, as if he could still, somehow, reach it. “What have you done…!?”

Byleth, her arm still mid-air from throwing away the stone, looks at him with a neutral face.

“It’s over, Claude,” she says.

They both know that it actually was over long before the stone disappeared into the void, and even before they put a foot in Mu. Claude grabbed onto Failnaught as if it were his last thread of hope, but no matter how much he tried to rationalise it, his plan was never more than a delusion.

Claude refrains a sob. “It’s not fair!” He shakes his head and hits the ground with his fists. “It’s not fair, Byleth!”

His fingers brush over the bow. It rests on the floor, completely inanimate, devoid of that energy that made it so special and precious. It’s nothing more than a grotesque mix of bones and iron, now. Claude is devastated.

“If our positions were reversed,” he spits, “I would have let you go.”

Byleth would have believed him a month ago, but not anymore.

She and he, they were called pragmatic and cold by their enemies and allies alike, but they both always were nothing more than soft fools, ready to have their skulls split open by an axe or by a sword, all to protect those they cared for. And this is why, despite it all, Byleth still clings to him: she knows he would have done the same.

“I’m not letting you go,” she hisses between her teeth.

She grabs his fingers and gently, she pushes the bow away with her other hand. Claude’s gaze stays in place, fixated on their joined hands.

“It’s not fair, Byleth,” he repeats with a small voice, this time. His whole figure seems to shrivel as anger leaves place to sadness. “When I woke up in Almyra and I realised what had happened… I cursed you for what you did. I hated you for so long… It’s not fair that they died for me when I got to live… I was too much of a coward to do anything other than trying to fix it. All I had in front of me was a wall and as long as I could still dig my way out through it, I thought I would be fine… I was too blind to realise the game was rigged from the start.”

Byleth feels his fingers trembling between hers as his voice represses a sob.

“I tried so hard; you have no idea!” he says. “But I’ve run out of options and I… I don’t know what to do anymore! This was … my last plan…!”

Byleth squeezes his hand and Claude looks at her in the eyes in response. His pupils are dilated, his lips trembling. “What should I do, Teach?” Claude sobs.

The nickname has a certain familiarity to it. Byleth never was his teacher, not really, but Claude would always call her like that when it was just the two of them. The sharp contrast with the politeness displayed by the other students made her wonder if he was testing her or if he was trying to push her out of her limits. She was wary of him, all this time. Now, she understands that it was always simply a word of endearment. Teach.

Of all the students in Garreg Mach, Claude was the one who looked as if he would need her guidance the less. He was always smiling, always so sure of himself even when all the odds were against him. He is nothing like this teenager anymore. His boyish features turned sharper; his body grew wider. With enough light, you’d distinguish some silver in his long hair. Yet, the anguish heard at the back of his throat as he pronounces those five words is that of a kid asking for help for the first time in his life.

“You worked hard,” Byleth murmurs, resting her forehead against his. “But you can rest, now. You are the one who taught me that, remember?”

Claude tilts his head.

“On the day my father died,” Byleth continues, her thumb caressing the back of his hand in a soothing motion, “everyone had kind words for me. But out of them all, it’s yours that stuck to me the most.”

“I don’t … remember,” Claude whispers. He sounds almost sorry.

“You told me that there was no shame in mourning. That the world would keep on moving anyway… Sadness is only temporary.”

Claude chuckles, as if mocking his own advice. “I’m tired,” he says, eyes shut, dismissing her words. “I want this to be over… You spared me in Derdriu but… I think I actually died there. I never left those shores.”

Byleth gulps as she feels him drifting away and he withdraws his hand from hers. “Leave me here to rot, please…” he says as he stands up again. “It won’t change a thing.”

Of course, of course, she understands his suffering, and that’s precisely the reason why she also knows she doesn’t have the answer to it. She couldn’t even find how to escape her own sadness… Dealing with feelings was never her strong point and if she’s honest with herself, neither is happiness.

Byleth lacks the arguments to convince him, but would she be damned if she didn’t at least try. She used to give up and every time, every time she persevered.

“This is not true!” she says. “You saved her, Claude! You saved Edelgard!”

 _You saved me_ , she wants to scream as well when the notion becomes clear in her head. Claude looks at her with wide eyes and he shakes his head, but she doesn’t let him interrupt her.

“You are the one who found these books and you learnt the language when no one else did. You studied so much, all by yourself, to translate them. This would have been impossible without you! You already did a difference, and not just for her, for me as well, for everyone who praised your knowledge and had me met you in the first place! And maybe it is not what you wanted, but it can be enough!”

And now, she’s the one who feels like crying. “I want to see everyone again,” she pleads. “I want to save El. And I… I’m sorry, but I can’t let you die.”

And so, Byleth begs on her knees, much like years and years ago, Claude had begged in front of her so she would spare his life. She begs because she knows the only thing standing between Claude and his inevitable death are her words, and the faint hope that they will give him the will to carry on if only a little more.

“Come with me… Please… I know I cannot force you… But if it’s without you … then there’s no point in coming back.”

“You are not fair…” Claude says again, grinding his teeth.

“I beg you, Claude…!” Her forehead in the dirt, she won’t even dare look at him. “Come with me and I swear, we will find a way…! And if we don’t, then I’ll let you do as you wish, but please, just this one time…”

“Why must you be like this,” Claude whines. “You are like the others… No one ever listens to me. No one respects my orders… Why do you all want to cling to me so much…”

Byleth exhales and raises her head. Claude is looking at her.

“It’s because I’m a teacher, Claude,” she says. And Byleth remembers, all these moments when it felt like the world was crumbling around her. These memories that are hers alone, that no one, and especially not Claude, can know about, rush to her head.

The void of Zahras, so dark and silent she could hear the blood pumping through her veins until she’d lose all reason. Her father’s diary, where she got the confirmation that something was wrong with her body, that she was as much human as monster. And her slumber, for five long years, lost at the bottom of the cold river that flows below Garreg Mach.

Every time, she faltered, and she thought about giving up. Yet, every time, she got back on her feet, guided by that simple idea.

“Being with them is what gave me the will to carry on!” she yells, and it’s a liberating cry. “I helped them, and they helped me back! You asked me what it was like, to be my student… You called me Teach… So, I won’t let you go… I’m never letting anyone behind, do you understand?”

Claude gulps and as he observes her, Byleth ponders she probably looks pathetic, all worked out and breathless. Yet, he blinks, and he comes closer.

“Then, as a teacher…”

As he speaks, Byleth knows she has won her bet. “Tell me what to do,” he says. “Give me a purpose.”

She takes a deep inspiration.

“For now, I can only ask you one thing.” She rests a hand on his shoulder, and she squeezes lightly. “Get us out of here.”

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

She wakes up to the cries of the seagulls. Soothed by the sound of the waves crashing on the beach outdoor, she keeps her eyes closed and she savours the moment. Dawn isn’t here just yet; she can still smell the distinct perfume of the dew in the air.

Byleth keeps very little memories of the return trip from deep within the forgotten city. For how long they walked, hours or days, she couldn’t tell. All she remembers is Claude leading the way the whole time, following her orders, his hand firm around hers. He never stopped, never hesitated. When the path led them down, he looked for a way up. For each a dead end, he found another way. And every time he felt her faltering, his grips grew tighter on her hand.

When they finally found their way out and they were welcomed by a starry sky, they took their first breath of fresh air in what felt like a lifetime and Claude screamed until his voice was so coarse it barely sounded human anymore. He laughed and he cried, and she simply embraced him in silence, out of tears to shed for they had dried long ago.

She opens her eyes and turns around. Her bed is empty. The other one, on the opposite side of the room, is empty as well. There is no one sitting in front of her small table. She pauses a moment and then stretches her arms, inhaling the scent of the sea floating in the air. She feels a dull pain in her ribcage, but it is light enough she can simply ignore it.

Slowly, she gets up and drags herself through the backdoor opening to the beach. Like every morning, some fruits are disposed in a basket near the entrance. She picks an apple and walks slowly to the deck where her fishing rod is waiting for her. She sits there and as she lets her feet rest into the cool water, she bites into the fruit. It’s a nice morning: calm, and not too hot yet.

There are clouds far away on the horizon, but she knows they probably won’t bring rain just yet. It hasn’t rained, not one single drop, ever since she returned here. People are starting to get worried as their crops are dying from the restless heat.

Several stars are still pinned to the morning sky, but her personal landmark, the Blue Sea Star, cannot be seen from Morfis, so she closes her eyes. This place is still alien and austere. It wasn’t meant to be inhabited on the daily and comfort was minimal when she bought it. She arranged it a little since then. She dug an oven on the patio and painted the inside walls white. She also traded an old rug, so the floor would look more refined. It’s a far cry from the opulence of her house in Enbarr, of course, but it’s a place she desperately wants to call her home.

She thinks about Edelgard, and how she probably missed the coronation ceremony and the little fiesta they had planned in her new cottage. Maybe El found it in herself to forgive her. She’s almost sure Hubert didn’t. She is a terrible friend.

There are merchant boats going to Fódlan every now and then, and Byleth watches them depart from this beach behind her house, but whenever she tries to imagine herself on their deck, a terrible dread settles in her guts. 

“Everyone is waiting for you!” a voice that could be Sothis’ says in her head. 

“You will be alone,” another one answers. 

She throws the core of her apple far away into the waves and she brings back her legs on the deck. What could she possibly do…?

She doesn’t know for how long she’s been staying here since she returned from Mu. She has lost all notion of time. She cannot tell what day, what month it is. If it weren’t for her purse getting significantly smaller, she would have assumed that time simply didn’t exist anymore. She finds the idea comforting.

On the first day after they returned, Claude stayed silent. He looked nothing more than the shadow of himself, so discreet Byleth could have imagined she never really brought him back. Eyes groggy with sleep but never truly sleeping, he watched her as she sat in front of the small table and opened his notebook. When she took a pen and started to write a letter, he didn’t say a word. The obvious question was painted all over his face nonetheless.

“Why don’t you give it directly to Edelgard?”

Byleth ignored him and she copied his drawings and graphics as best as she could with trembling fingers, but she was at a loss when confronted to his instructions. She squinted to try to decipher them, but both the language he had used, and his handwriting made it hard to understand.

Without waiting for her to ask, Claude crawled out of bed and he leaned above her shoulder. He took the pen from her hand and, carefully, he translated the words, making sure his lines were clear enough to read.

Byleth observed him from the corner of her eye. It was the first time she was seeing him so close and in daylight, the first time there was no anger nor sadness painted on his face. This was what she wanted for him: a purpose, and in that instant, he had found one. His pupils dilated and his brow furrowed in concentration, she found him quite handsome.

When Claude was done and Byleth signed the letter and sealed it, she wondered what El would think, when she’d see two distinctive handwritings on the paper and when she’d realise the content of the letter, and what Byleth was planning all this time behind her back. But the truth was, Byleth’s final words would probably be the most startling aspect of it:

_I’m sorry, I cannot come back to you._

A distinctive “thump” in the distance, followed by cursing words, distract Byleth from her memories. Claude missed the targets again.

He stayed with her. Every morning, he trains, and it is an uphill battle, for he could barely even hold his bow straight at first. He curses a lot and has little patience, but slowly but surely, he’s making progress.

And on the afternoons, he disappears for hours, coming back with books and all sorts of strange objects. His obsession frightened her at first, but her fears settled down when she saw him write letters with the hint of a smile on his lips. He’s planning for something, but she’s past the point of trying to guess what exactly.

Seeing Claude alive, it’s all that seems to matter. She’d say “ _well_ and alive”, but it’s hard to truly tell what’s going on inside his head. At least, day after day, he seems more dynamic. She sees colours reappear on his cheeks, and a new light inside his eyes. His closed lips let more and more words out. It’s little, but it feels enough.

As for her…

She lies on the deck and she breathes in the smell of the sea foam. She likes to fantasise a new life, here, in Erinys. She will run out of money soon, but she could become a fisherman. She’d work at night and come home with the first lights of day. And Claude would be there, to welcome her back with a warm cup of tea and plans about his own day that would be about to begin.

She muses that maybe, she has grown fond of him after all. When she stopped to read into his words and to antagonise his behaviour, she came to enjoy him and his singularities. More than anything else, he understands her, and he needs her. And he must like her as well, doesn’t he? Wouldn’t he have left, otherwise…?

“’morning,” Claude mumbles to her attention as he approaches, and he crouches to wet his face in the sea water. He sounds grumpy. His training certainly didn’t pay off this morning either. “You’re early today.”

“Still less than you,” Byleth whispers back.

“Mmh…”

Yes, that’s one thing that never changed with time. Claude’s insomnias keep him alert all night long.

“It’s the heat,” he says, eyes fixated on the horizon. “But thankfully, it should be raining soon.”

Byleth looks at him, circumspect. “These clouds always dissipate later in the day,” she says.

“Don’t you feel it in the air?” he interrogates her with mystery in his voice. “A storm is coming.”

She shrugs. Claude always speaks in riddles. She used to think he was pretentious or that he liked the attention, but now she’s convinced he’s simply living in his own world.

They stay silent for a while, Claude carefully washing the sweat off his face and his neck. When he’s done, he lies beside her on the deck as Byleth sits down to cast her fishing rod. She always manages to catch a few fishes before it gets too hot to stay outside.

Claude observes her, cheek rested on his hand. The wind is blowing through his hair and it ruffles his light, white shirt, drying his skin. It’s a familiar scenery, a ritual they’ve been performing day after day.

Byleth is convinced that a part of themselves stayed down there, in Mu. It all feels like a distant nightmare, now, and she would have ruled it out as such if it had not been for her newfound appreciation for the sunlight.

Now that they’ve done all they possibly could have, now that Edelgard is probably well and alive somewhere in Fódlan, their futures seem uncertain and somewhat meaningless. But as long as they can stay here, together, enjoying each other’s company in silence without really admitting it, Byleth isn’t frightened. As long as she can forget about time, simply fishing in the sea with Claude sleeping quietly by her side…

“Actually, there is…”

Claude stumbles on his words. Startled, Byleth turns around to look at him. “There is something I need to show you,” he says.

She retrieves her bait. Claude looks grave, which cannot possibly be good news. She gulps and nods slowly as she feels her dreams slipping through her fingers.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

On the first night after their return, Claude sneaked out. He stayed in the doorframe for long minutes, watching at this place that never changed since they left to Mu, and at Byleth’s sleeping form.

He was sure the only reason Byleth was still there was to help him. There was no way she would have missed the opportunity to give the good news to Edelgard in person otherwise. Later in the day she made many promises to him, obviously trying to cheer him up. It was obvious to everyone that he was a wreck. She even said she would buy this miserable cabin and that she was ready to stay there with him. It was all insanity, of course.

Claude knew Byleth was trying her best but, despite her efforts, all he felt was a crushing emptiness. It was an unusual feeling for him, who always had something on his mind. The only other time he’d ever felt that way was on that fateful day four years ago, when he had seen his arrows miss their targets. He had found the strength to carry on, somehow, in the form of that strange place and of Failnaught’s powers, but as he watched the Crest stone disappear in the darkness, he knew viscerally that this time, he had no other way out. His dream was crushed one and for all, and he was left with nothing.

_If we don’t find a way, I’ll let you do as you wish._

Those were Byleth’s exact words. He promised to help her save Edelgard, and he promised to help her out of Mu. He had accomplished both of those tasks and now, he was simply a burden to her, a dead weight preventing her to move on. As long as he would be around, she wouldn’t be able to leave. So, Claude left a word for her on the table before he departed. The letter said that he had returned to Senerio and that she should go back home as well and forget about him. He closed the door behind him and, alone, he walked to the desert.

He had not bothered wearing anything more than a pair of boots and light clothes. He wouldn’t need more than that.

It was cold and he was tired. All he had to do was to find a nice place, sit down, and let sleep claim him. It would be the sweetest, painless rest one could imagine, and by morning the sand would have covered his body enough no one would ever find him again nor suspect this was the place he had chosen for his last night.

Claude walked through the dunes, only guided by the starlight and oblivious to everything but the raging black hole inside his chest. After all this time chasing after an illusion, he welcomed that emptiness. It wasn’t painful nor enjoyable. It just _was_.

 _This will do_ , he thought when he found some ruins, and he sat there, his back against a crumbled wall. He closed his eyes and he shivered as the wind started to blow stronger. He was so exhausted and he had not slept properly for so many days, he knew it wouldn’t take long, so he curled up and he tried to focus on nothing.

But the wind was restless as it kept on blowing, it dissipated the few clouds covering the sky, until a new light distracted Claude’s slumber. Slightly annoyed, he opened his eyes and was met with the vision of a full moon.

He caught his breath as one single thought started to make its way through his brain. He tried to dismiss it, to focus on his soreness instead, and he begged for his brain to stop thinking, but it was to no avail: the vision wouldn’t leave his mind. On the table where he had left his note to Byleth, also rested a moon-shaped object. Her pendent.

Claude scratched his beard slowly with his fingers numb from the cold and he thought that it was a bit sad that in the end, they never figured out what was the true purpose of this object.

 _This is no good_ , the most tired part of himself thought, as another one rejoiced as the emptiness started to gain colours and he remembered many other doors he had left open.

_No more of this, I want to rest…!_

Ignoring his own complaints, Claude stood up and he looked at the stars. Under the heavenly vault, he felt small and insignificant. He smiled because the feeling was familiar. He remembered Byleth’s words that were truly his, and this advice given by his past self to the mercenary who had lost her father finally rang true to his present self.

It had been preposterous of him, probably, to think that he was so important and his dreams so big that life would be meaningless without them. There were more concrete things he could still control. He was so focused on the bigger picture he had forgotten about them and about that strange ritual he used to do as a child, when he felt so sad and overwhelmed the only way he could go on again was to be reminded that he was insignificant in front of the immensity of the universe.

Claude always saw mysteries as puzzles he had to solve. It wasn’t just out of curiosity alone, he thought that maybe if he studied these problems attentively enough, the answers he’d find could help him to accomplish his dream. But he wasn’t like that before. He was simply a curious kid. He got lost along the way.

“Layla,” Claude murmured. He had promised her and his mother that they would meet again, but he never followed through. They must think him dead. Did they cry for him, he wondered?

He clenched his fists and he started walking back to the town. He had been unfair, and not just to his family. To Nahkt as well and, of course, to the Golden Deer. They didn’t care so much about his lofty ambitions; they cared about _him_. Of course, they weren’t there to hear him anymore; they were dead. But he came to realise that the pain he felt every time he was thinking about them was important and precious. It was the proof of their love for him, and also of his love for them. As long as he would live to feel that pain, part of them would live on as well.

“You are an idiot,” he told himself, almost tumbling in the sand as he picked up his pace. “Byleth wouldn’t have believed your stupid note anyway.”

He accelerated and when he reached the fishing cabin again, he was shaking from the cold. Byleth had not moved at all, she was still curled up on her side and sleeping soundly. Claude got rid of his boots and, carefully, he lifted her sheets.

When he slipped inside her bed, Byleth let out a grunt as his weight shifted the mattress slightly. Without saying a word, Claude stuck to her, warming up his body against her back. She groaned when the cold tip of his nose brushed over her neck, but instead of pushing him away, she curled onto him.

What would she have felt like, waking up to an empty house and to an obvious lie simply fabricated to comfort her…?

 _Maybe_ , he thought, eyeing at the precious pendent on the table, _if I cling to this, little by little, one day, I won’t need anything at all to move forward._

It wasn’t long before he fell asleep, his brain full of theories and plans for the days to come.

They never talked about that night. Before morning came, Claude woke up and knocked on Nahkt’s door. The man was half asleep but so happy to see him alive, he embraced him and cried a little. They talked until the first lights of dawn appeared on the horizon, and this comforted Claude in his decision.

When he entered the cabin again, he was met with a lost Byleth. Between her hands, there was the letter he had forgotten to get rid of. From the look on her face, it was clear that she suspected something had happened to him.

She didn’t ask, though, and he didn’t tell either. Instead, he asked: “can you help me?”

So, Claude took off his shirt and he sat beside her on the bed. Then, he showed her his arm and the scar roaming from his chest to the tips of his fingers, tracing complex patterns all along the way. Failnaught’s curse.

Byleth skimmed over his skin with her expert fingers, feeling and pinching the tendons and the muscles. When she was done, she slowly massaged him, unknotting the tensions and dissolving the pain as best as she could, and she told him that he could probably recover, with time and patience. Perhaps not entirely, but he could.

He couldn’t tell if it was a lie or not, but he decided to accept her words for, at the very least, they were what he wanted to hear. He needed simple objectives, clear tasks to keep him going. Anything to fill the gap left by his lifelong dream.

Claude clung to that idea, and to the mysteries of the pendent, day after day, so he would find a purpose and a reason to carry on. He spent most of his time with Nahkt and together, they tackled his problematic.

It felt almost like a punishment at first and it reminded him of those days when he was a kid and his parents would force him to train or to pray in the morning.

He solved one question, and then was met with another one. Piece after piece, mystery after mystery, he kept himself occupied. It was nothing more than a crutch, really, but much like he had ended up taking a liking in archery and in meditation, Claude woke up one day vaguely excited about what the future had in store for him.

One morning, he finally received a letter from distant Almyra. This is when it became clear to him, as he was walking slowly but surely towards a brighter future and patching up the severed relationships from his past, that unlike him, Byleth had not made any progress at all. There were more reasons to her extended stay in Morfis than simply watching over him.

So, Claude took a decision.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Claude sits on the grass a few metres away from the beach. He lit a small fire in front of him in what looks like a bowl. He taps the grass beside him with the flat of his hand.

“Come on, join me,” he says.

Intrigued, Byleth does as he says without saying a word. The grass is cold and wet from the dew and she reprimes a grimace as the fabric of her pants sticks to her skin.

“Will you explain yourself?” she murmurs.

“Yes, yes. I wanted to show you this,” he says, pointing at the fire. Byleth observes in silence.

“In Almyra,” Claude starts, “we pray to the fire. I’m not much of a believer myself, but I like to do this in the morning, to clear my mind.”

“Is this the reason why you always wake up so early?” she asks, but she never saw him do anything like that before.

“I guess it was, originally, yes,” Claude continues, scratching his head. “Between you and me… This is a first in a very long time.”

Byleth chews on her bottom lip, eyes captured by the dancing flames. “How does it work?”

“Well…” Claude slowly crosses his legs, inviting her to do so. “You simply close your eyes, and you focus on your respiration and on the sound of the fire. You let your mind wander…”

Byleth imitates him attentively. “A bit like fishing, isn’t it?”

“… I guess it could be, yes.”

So, Byleth focuses on the sounds around her. There is more than the fire. She can also hear the wind, the seagulls, and the first insects that are starting to wake up. If she concentrates her mind enough, she can even perceive her own breathing, and Claude’s, right beside her. But it doesn’t help her to focus, on the contrary.

“What are you thinking about…?” she murmurs.

“Them,” Claude answers after a few seconds, his voice so low it’s barely a whisper.

 _Them_. There is no point in asking whom he is talking about. At this suggestion, Byleth’s mind also wanders to them. Leonie’s bright, orange hair. Ignatz’s shy figure. Lysithea’s sharp mind. Hilda’s big grin.

“Doesn’t it hurt you?” Byleth says. She has furrowed her brows, overtaken by an unexpected sadness.

“It does,” Claude whispers.

Byleth thinks she can understand where he is coming from, as her own mind go to someone else now. She remembers this morning, years ago, when she woke up to find her bed empty. It was like every other morning, but she could feel something was different in her guts. On the nightstand, Jeritza had left his precious black ribbon.

Ever since the end of the war, Jeritza used to leave at night to satiate his blood thirst. His victims weren’t _good_ people, but they still deserved a trial. Such barbaric actions had no place in Edelgard’s Empire.

Her eyes closed, she feels Claude’s hand reaching for hers. She was trembling without noticing it. She opens her eyes slowly and he’s looking at her with a grave face.

“I’m not the only one in trouble, am I?” Claude says. “There is a reason why you haven’t returned to Fódlan just yet, isn’t there? I know it’s not only because of me…”

So, this is what he truly wanted to ask her. Byleth raises her eyes at him. He smiles and the corners of his eyes smile with his lips.

“You are special, Claude,” she says. “Much like you, I’m stuck there, eight years ago.”

“But don’t you have someone waiting for you, in Enbarr?” he asks, examining her face.

“Do you mean Edelgard…?”

“Not necessarily.”

“I … settled down with a man,” she whispers. “Because he understood me…”

She diverts her eyes as she knows she just admitted something embarrassing.

“It’s no one you know of,” she quickly adds before he can press the matter further; because it’s way easier to tell a lie than to bother trying to explain the weird and twisted relationship she had with Jeritza.

“And don’t you miss him,” Claude murmurs, “that love of yours?”

“Love…? It wasn’t that serious,” she deflects with a sad smile, and Claude’s expression deepens in return, his narrow eyes seeing the truth right through her.

Together, they were like oil and fire. Their passion was something else entirely, built upon months of mutual pining and a mountain of corpses, a fire that threatened day after day to consume them both. He was honest and he faced his sins without flinching. But his face, his voice, would always remind Byleth of the darker side of this war, the darker side of herself. When she tried to go back into the light, Jeritza was the hand dragging her down in the darkness.

She doesn’t know what became of him. After she failed to find him when he disappeared, she tried not to think too much about it, but she couldn’t stop the thoughts that still lingered at the back of her mind when she’d say his name in front of Edelgard, and the Emperor would only divert her gaze as an answer. After that, Byleth decided it was better to just never bring him up ever again. And so, she tried to mourn him; but can you even mourn someone who is not dead? _He isn’t dead, is he…?_

“I think he died.”

The words leave her mouth in a whisper just to die unanswered somewhere in the air. There is no other solution, no other answer to that question. It is just a truth she always knew intimately, deep down, but could never admit aloud. When Jeritza left, she understood for the first time what it felt like to be alone.

“…

“I see. You also have a lot to sort out, don’t you?” Claude says.

“That’s the issue,” Byleth murmurs. “I can’t imagine myself coming back… Do you think it is a bad thing if I simply… Stay here? If eventually, it helps us…?”

Claude doesn’t answer right away. By the way he seems lost in his thoughts, pondering the right words to pick, Byleth knows his answer will not be simple to hear.

“It’s tempting, I’ll admit…” he finally says. “But Byleth… Nothing will ever be settled for you until you go back to Fódlan. I’m sure you understand it as well.

“You are not like me. I’m selfish, and you are the opposite. You went this far for someone else, you risked your life for someone else. You are taking all the responsibilities on your shoulders. But you need to live for yourself. Not for me, nor for Edelgard. For you. We destroyed my last anchor in Mu so I could go on. You need to do the same.”

Byleth looks at his hand squishing hers. He tries to comfort her, but his words cut like a thousand blades. 

“What did you expect,” Claude continues as he presses his forehead against hers, “that we’d lick each other’s wounds until we could forget about everything bad that ever happened?” 

If he is harsh, there is a tremor in his voice. He is hurt, she knows, maybe even more than her. Claude is taking the decision she is too much of a coward to make, because his resolve is unshakeable. He was ready to die that day in Derdriu, and once again when he went with her to the core of the earth. He calls himself selfish, but he truly is the opposite. He did all of this for his friends who died for him.

She looks at him and his brilliant green eyes, full of compassion.

“Eh… Don’t cry…” Claude whispers.

“I’m not crying.” 

Claude’s hand still leaves hers to rest on her cheek, and he caresses her skin with his thumb, as if to dry the tears that aren’t there.

“Is this really how it’s going to end…?” she murmurs, the tip of her fingers on his lips.

A warm smile appears on his face. “Who’s talking about ‘end’?” he says. “No. It’s about starting over.”

In a dramatic move, Claude stands up and he throws dust in the fire to extinguish it. “How about this?” he says. “Go back to Fódlan. Do what you must. Free yourself.”

“What if… What if when I’m done, there’s nothing left for me?”

“Maybe by then, I will have found a way,” Claude says. “So, please, hold on tight.”

The underlying meaning on his words floats in her head.

“I will…” she whispers.

“Mmh… Just promise me this is the last time you’ll follow someone else’s instructions, okay?”

Claude is right. She never let herself let go of the war, of Jeritza, of her grudges, of her guilt. And she knows how things ended up the last time she tried to forget about her sorrow in the arms of another ghost from the past. Much like Claude, she still has many things to confront, starting with Edelgard.

“And now, let’s celebrate!” Claude says, extending a hand to her.

“Celebrate?”

“Yes! The start of our new life!”

They go for a walk together along the shore. Hands intertwined; they walk barefoot in the sand that is already almost too hot to the touch. The air is starting to get suffocating, announcing yet another scorching day. They watch the boats coming back from the open sea, their holds full of food after a night spent fishing. The city awakens and slowly, the clock that was stopped for so many weeks resumes its inexorable journey. On the horizon, the dark clouds have yet to dissipate.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

They spend the evening in Erinys’ old tavern, a place that is almost like home now. Since that night when she got into a drinking contest to win a bow for Claude, Byleth came back many times to drink her doubts and her sorrow away.

Nahkt joined them for a while and he discussed vehemently with Claude as Byleth watched them in silence, sipping her beer. She had met the man before, an eccentric in his own way, but also passionate about his job. As she watched him indulge in diatribes with Claude, he reminded her a little of Hanneman. The two men seem to have found a certain balance in their relationship. She couldn’t help but envy them a little.

As the night dragged on, Nahkt left and when he told her goodbye, something pinched inside her chest, as if reality was slowly sinking in.

She is leaving for good. It is more a choice of reason than one coming from her heart.

Claude leaves her little time to brood after that, though, as when there are little people left in the tavern, he starts to ask her questions. It is obvious he has been thinking about these for quite a long time, and that he wants answers at last. His words are carefully chosen and his questions precise. He asks her about the Empire, about the Church, about the Sword of the Creator and, of course, about herself. Byleth answers as well as she can, but for the most part, she has as little guesses as him.

She still surprises him when she tells him about her un-beating heart and about the things she found in her father’s diary. As she watches his eyes go round and the look of disbelief on his face, she realises that she has never told these things to anyone else before and that surely, it would take someone like Claude to believe her.

Byleth also has many questions for him—who was he truly in Almyra, what was he doing all this time, why did he run away from home? She doesn’t ask them. Claude, she knows by now, is not the sort of person you could pressure into opening up. He’d only speak in metaphors and give her subtle hints between two cups of tea.

Byleth feels dizzy after a while and she wants to blame the alcohol, but she knows better than that. She isn’t drunk on the liquor, but on Claude’s words, on the glimmer she sees in his eyes where she feared the light had died forever, on his smile that she knows he is struggling to display, but that is genuine enough in that moment. She managed to achieve this, to give him a new start.

Years ago, when Edelgard asked her what she thought about Claude before they flew to take Derdriu, Byleth answered that he was just a brat, an immature troublemaker. From Edelgard’s perspective, though, he was the exact opposite. She saw him as a formidable foe, the sort of man you could never turn your back to, and with time, Byleth ended up thinking the same.

But now that she got to know him, Byleth is certain that Claude is neither one nor the other. He sits somewhere in between. A complex mind, capable of great and perhaps terrible things, who got the ground cut under his feet too soon for him to really make a difference. What Claude could have been, they will never know. But he is not a bad person, she can say as much. In this tavern, talking about their lives and sharing their stories with easy laughs, it’s easy for her to imagine another life, one where they could have been proper allies. Friends.

The walk back home is familiar, but this time around there is no assassin lurking in the shadows and ready to strangle her. Her mind isn’t clouded by guilt either.

Claude keeps on talking, pointing at the constellations, and recounting stories from what Byleth pictures as his childhood. Then, he starts speaking in High Almyran. She doesn’t understand any of it, but under the radiance of the stars, he looks so alive she feels like crying.

Perhaps rewinding time to let him live was meant to be her punishment; an everlasting reminder of what she had done and that everyone around her seemed to have forgiven when they had no right to. But much like you cannot buy trust, it seems like you cannot buy hatred either. Claude reaches for her arm and he holds her gently close to his side as he keeps on declaiming his verses. So close to him, so peaceful, the feeling is reminiscent of years ago during that one night in Garreg Mach’s reception hall, when they had danced together to the sound of the violins. 

They close the door behind them, and they stay there, close to the entrance, facing each other.

Byleth looks at this room she arranged herself, and her sadness isn’t lost to Claude. The tips of his fingers brush over her hand and a subtle hint of pink colours his cheeks. His breath is so close to her face it tickles a little. She takes his hand.

“Do you want me to show you?” she asks. “My secret.”

“Yes,” he whispers, and they both know he’s answering another question altogether, one he didn’t give her that night when he had carried her home on his back.

The house has two beds, each neatly arranged in a different corner of the room, but it’s with unspoken consent that they both slip under the same sheets.

Byleth takes off her shirt swiftly and Claude blinks once, twice at her boldness as she lays bare chest in front of him.

“Here, see, this is what I was talking about,” she says, pointing at the crooked scar between her breasts. Save for it, her skin is as pale and immaculate as ever. Byleth always credited her lack of scars to her Crest, but she had that one, single exception on her skin. The proof of her true nature.

Claude exhales loudly. Slowly, he touches the scar this the tips of his fingers. “It’s so strange,” he says, “it looks almost surgical. I can tell, I studied dissections before, you know…” He traces along the delicate patch of dark skin. Byleth simply hums in response.

Growing bold, Claude squeezes more, his hand now palming the underside of her generous breast, probing for her pulse.

“Your heart beats just fine,” he states.

She smiles, playing coy in response to his strategy. “Well… Yes, it does, now.”

She feels it thundering inside her chest, so loud it sounds like it could jump out of her ribcage any time.

“Sometimes,” she murmurs, “I still feel strange about it.”

“Are you afraid?” Claude asks her.

She squints. He speaks in riddles, as always.

“No.” She sighs, and she grabs his hand into hers to encourage him further.

He gasps at that, first, but soon he finds composure and he leans closer to whisper in her ear. “It’s alright, you can admit it,” he teases, nibbling her neck. “Because I have to say… I am sightly terrified.”

Her eyes wander behind him as he hugs her tightly, rubbing his head against her neck.

“Claude…” she murmurs.

“Mmh…” He ignores her, too busy pestering her throat with wet kisses.

“You didn’t tell me, in the end… The pendent… You didn’t tell me what you found about it.”

Claude smiles against her skin. “It was simply as I always guessed,” he whispers. “Just a censer.”

“Ah.”

Yes, of course. It was never about the answer. The realisation, somehow, stirs something from deep within her. Whatever is waiting for her in Enbarr, no matter the way El will react to what she must tell her… Things will be fine, when she gets rid of that burden.

Claude is tender and conscientious and he feels exactly as she always imagined. She sighs in contempt, her arms encircling him, and for the first time in an eternity, she giggles.

Eyes hazy, she pushes slowly on his shoulders until he falls gently, resting on his forearms. He looks dishevelled, his hair wild and his chest rising quickly as he watches her body with intense eyes. Despite his manifest audacity from earlier, his cheeks are red. He observes her in silence as she leans above him and she meticulously unbuttons his shirt.

She sprays her hands across his chest, her nails scrubbing the fine hairs scattered there. His skin is burning hot and his heart is beating loudly against the palm of her hand. From the tips of her fingers, Byleth starts mapping his scars in the dark. Some are so deep she can clearly figure out their patterns, and she wonders how painful the blows were, how long the wounds took to heal. She knows each one of them is as much his as it is hers. These scars are the proof of her shortcomings and of his bravado, the testimony of the last stand of a man who gambled his life to save his people.

Claude shivers. There is a hint of hesitation in his eyes that Byleth notices. Slowly, she moves her hands to cup his face.

“You are beautiful,” she murmurs. Not just his body, not just his face, but also his humility and his kindness. All of him, the good and the bad; she finds beautiful.

Claude looks distraught for a second and, out of words to formulate a proper answer, he kisses her in return, swallowing her moans as he pins her against the mattress.

She tastes like honey from the sweet ale, and he like fresh mint from the tea he had earlier that night. Their hands adventurous and bold, they are both a bit clumsy at the exercise but neither of them mind nor take notice, their tongues too busy exploring each other’s mouth, releasing the tension that has been building up between them for days, weeks, months.

“If you ever feel afraid,” Claude says breathlessly, crooking her leg around his hip, “just think about me. Think about how I’m afraid as well. If I know we are both feeling the same way, then I’m sure we will be fine.”

Byleth tangles a hand in his hair and as she represses a moan, she enjoys the taste of his sweat, the feeling of his skin hot against hers, and of his warmth between her tighs.

Claude is not as brave as she is, though, and so he pulls her closer to bury his head inside her neck and he breathes her in, rocking slowly in her, too lost in his passion to really formulate a thought anymore. As he holds her tight, his heartbeat blurs into hers to create a delicious harmony.

They continue to make love like that, slowly, almost lazily. For this night, they have all the time in the world, and they both want to make it last. In their small room where a cool breeze blows through the open windows and silence is only disrupted by the sounds of their lovemaking, there is nothing left of status and obligations, of resentment and pain. Maybe desire is simply clouding her mind, but Byleth knows that the words Claude whispers in her ear in Almyran as he picks up his pace and loses himself into her must hold some sort of deeper meaning. 

They wake up late in the morning to the sound of people shouting and laughing from the street. They are still tangled together; bodies soar from the night. Claude’s arms are encircling Byleth in a warm embrace and his calm breathing caresses her forehead. His eyes are barely open when she leans on her elbow to look at him in the morning sun. She’s been wanting to do that for months, to contemplate his sleepy face. He looks appeased, and the smile he gives her in response to her adoring gaze is the earnest she’s ever seen painted on his face.

In that instant and as the sounds from outside come as a bitter reminder of the task waiting for her, Byleth knows that there will always be an indissoluble bond between them, one built on distrust and missed opportunities, on failures and on blood. And, despite all of this, this bond was also born out of the strength they found to reach out for one another, against all the odds.

Byleth is still afraid but she embraces the feeling, just like she embraces Claude once again.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

The dockers diligently load the ship under the instructions of their foreman. The wooden cases scratch the deck and bump into one another in a deafening cacophony. The boat is preparing for a trip that will take them all around the known world. The first step is the capital, where it will be joined by other vessels, then the islands far west. Byleth will stop at the next step: Hresvelg’s territory, Enbarr. She traded the rest of her gold against a hammock and a one-way trip.

She watches the sailors as they make their final checks and the dealers who are making sure their goods are secured properly on the vessel. Wind blows through her hair and she turns her head to look at Claude. His eyes are fixated on the sea in front of them, lost in his thoughts.

They made love again early this morning, and several times on the days that came before. His scent still lingers on her skin.

“Claude,” she says, pulling lightly on his shirt so he will look at her. “Can I ask you something?”

He blinks, takes the time to dissipate the obviously deep reflection he was lost into. “Sure.”

“Back then, when you told us that you had planned to rule over Fódlan by yourself, was that true?”

He chuckles, visibly surprised by the sudden interrogation.

“I may not agree with the way Edelgard did things,” he simply answers, “but I think her results were good.”

Byleth pouts in response. It is not as if she expected a clear answer, but she’s still disappointed that he didn’t go in detail.

Noticing her expression, he quickly adds, “Let’s just say I would have done even better.” He flashes a cocky smile, and suddenly it becomes hard to blame his secrecy.

“Really?” Byleth asks.

Claude winks. “I had plans for you. I would have made you a queen,” he whispers as if revealing a secret.

“Me? A queen?” she retorts, a finger pointed at her face, “I don’t think I’d ever agree with that!”

“And I don’t think you could have refused me anything.” He grins.

Yes, maybe that’s true. This was how things were with Edelgard, after all. She would have done anything to help her reach her goals. She _did_ anything.

“I could never explain why I was drawn to Edelgard,” she suddenly says. “It was a gut feeling, a bond that felt like it was out my control entirely. As if fate had decided it before we even met. And sometimes I wonder how different things would have turned out if I had chosen someone else instead.”

Claude scratches the back of his head sheepishly, collecting his thoughts. “Byleth, do you know? The true reason you met Edelgard? Why _we_ met?”

“Do you mean it wasn’t by chance?” she asks, surprised.

He shakes his head slowly.

“Listen, I too like to believe there are things greater than us, outside of our control. Some might call it ‘god’; you call it ‘fate’. There is something comforting in that idea. But ultimately, we are all the instruments of our own destiny. You chose Edelgard for a reason, one you cannot understand right now maybe, but there _was_ a reason. And what I can tell you with certainty is that we met for a reason as well.”

Now, he piqued her interest.

“That night in Remire village, when we knocked on your door…” Claude says, “I knew you would be there. I surveyed the sector hours before. I knew brigands were tailing us. Everyone was too busy joking around and acting like the stupid kids we were to notice, but when you’ve spent all your life escaping these types of threats… Well, let’s say you get wary of some things. The slight change in the air. The eyes on your back. The distant rustle of the trees that does not sound exactly like the movements of an animal. And so on. When we got attacked by the bandits, I just ran right where I knew there would be people to help me. So, there was no chance nor luck in our encounter. It was not fate, and it was not any sort of miracle. You could say that I forged our destiny, just like you forged yours by betraying the Church and by choosing to side with Edelgard.”

Byleth thinks about his words carefully and she remembers that Ferdinand had expressed a theory slightly similar to this one before. “And meeting you here again, in Morfis, against all the odds, how would you call it?” she says.

“That … that I guess it is fate,” Claude admits. He lets out a murmur that slowly, surely, turns into a laughter that flows into the wind like a melody.

“And now, Teach? Have you figured out your plans?” he diverts.

The truth is, she doesn’t know. She acquired a new life when she killed Rhea, and that’s much, much more than Byleth ever had before. But she has one too many scores to settle. She’s been turning a blind eye to this truth for too long. Too obsessed by her pain and her guilt, too afraid to address them properly, she made it so she would always have something to keep her occupied. But now…

“When I’m done in Enbarr… I guess, maybe, I’ll keep travelling the world. With no restraint, this time.”

Her answer sounds empty even to her ears, but Claude’s expression softens up when he hears it.

“What about you Claude? Why don’t you go back—“

“No,” he immediately cuts her before she can finish. “I will stay here for a bit. Work on my skills. Who knows, maybe I can be a decent shot again. And after that… Well, there are things I want to do.

“Nothing dangerous, I promise,” he quickly adds when he sees her expression darken. “I’ve started to translate this book, with Nahkt. It’s mostly medical stuff… I’m not an expert on the matter, of course, but I think it could be useful to many people, especially in Fódlan, and… It will keep me occupied; you know. For long.”

“And then…?”

“Hey, give me a break! I don’t even know what I’m gonna eat tonight!” he teases.

The ship horn resonates, surprising them both. They exchange a quick glance; painfully aware it is time for Byleth to leave.

“Will I ever see you again…?” she asks him, and it sounds more like a plead than what she intended.

Claude doesn’t answer. Instead, he reaches for her and he embraces her. He holds her so close she can feel his heart beating into his chest. She closes her eyes. She wants to remember this feeling, his smell, to burn this moment forever into her body and into her brain. She knows this is Claude’s way to tell her something, to convey the feelings he cannot voice. Of what nature exactly, she doesn’t have the answer to that, but as he sighs deeply, she knows he’s also trying to decipher her own, loud heartbeat.

“I will speak to Edelgard,” she whispers, pressed against him, her arms encircling his body. “I’ll let her know, about the Locket, about—”

“You don’t have to,” Claude whispers back, his voice muffled in her hair.

“I _want_ to. And you want it as well, don’t you?”

He sighs. “You read me like a book,” he says.

The horn blows again, and Claude whispers something into her ear before he pulls away.

And just like that, they separate. Byleth adjusts the bag on her back and she tightens her grip around the straps as she gets on the gangway. When the boat leaves, she does not dare to ever look back at the shore.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

Claude sits on the deck behind the house and he watches the boat fading away on the horizon, now nothing more than a black dot surrounded by dark clouds. It’s a weird feeling. Usually, he isn’t the one who watches as others go away.

Byleth leaves and with her, part of the burden that weighed on his heart. It is replaced by something else, something he decides to call a _lack_. It is not a bad feeling, just the sort that you feel after a night spent with your friends, when everyone comes back home and takes separate roads only with the promise to meet again. Where, when… It doesn’t really matter; it’s a certitude, as certain as the rain will eventually reach Morfis.

He thinks about the letter he received a few days prior and he smiles a little. The handwriting was familiar and precise and with it, there was a drawing. The portrait of a young girl, whose traits he knows by heart without ever meeting her. _She is two_ , the letter stated, _and she’s growing up learning all about you_. One day, he will return. One day, he will move on and allow himself to look at another way. For now, he knows it’s too soon.

Claude lies down on his back and his left arm hurts a little from the day before. For a second, he considers training. He thinks about the targets he set against the walls of the house, of how bad his aim still is. But he has time, he finally decides. Time to rest and, for once, to do nothing, think about nothing. Put his own words into application, and stay still, as the world around him keeps on moving.

His eyes find Byleth’s fishing rod, next to him on the planks.

His dreams of grandeur, of global peace and of mutual understanding… They died long ago and with them, his friends. It left a hole in his heart, one that is way too big to ever be filled completely. But now that he has reached it, the ultimate dead end, and that he’s out of tricks to play, out of lies to say and out of space to run away, all he is left with is himself, his knowledge, his devotion and his love. And it’s nothing more than a few embers right now, but he knows that this small flame of determination will one day turn into a magnificent fire again, one that will give him the strength to carry on.

Above all, he has hope.

And so, quietly, Claude starts to fall asleep, soothed by the melody of the waves and by the sound of the strong wind in the trees. It’s a deep sleep, one that is devoid of dreams and nightmares alike. A peaceful sleep.

He sighs, but it is out of contentment, this time.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

On the ship, the strong wind slaps her cheeks. Byleth has been staying there for what feels hours now, and it’s growing colder.

In the pocket of her cloak, nestled against her chest, she can feel a weight. Instinctively, she reaches for it and finds Claude’s diary. The book is thick and the leather from its cover is all worn out. Some pages stick out a little, as if they were added later, or just torn out and put back into place. It’s clear that it’s been through a lot, and Claude was never one to take good care of his belongings.

For a second she feels guilty, thinks that she simply forgot to give it back to him, but then she remembers distinctively leaving it on the table before they departed for the harbour. She squints. _Claude_ is the one who gave it to her, which can only mean one thing. _He wanted me to read it._

Nonchalantly, she skims through the pages. Much to her surprise, the content is not exactly as she expected. She thought this was his travel diary, or only something that he used for his research, for she already knew it was full of maps and half-finished translations of old books. But the notebook is clearly way more than that: between the notes in languages that she cannot always decipher and awkward sketches, she also finds poems, prose and, much to her surprise, his thoughts. No, it’s definitely not a travel diary. It’s Claude’s _private_ diary.

She inhales sharply.

On these pages, maybe as a way to cope with his pain, Claude wrote about his ambitions, his dreams, his fears. It is like a window on his mind, imperfect but true at the same time. As Byleth goes on, page after page, she can feel the air leaving her lungs. She cannot understand everything written in there, but it’s still enough to paint a vivid picture of him, that of a comet who rose and rose into the sky only to crash and burn.

There are the things she suspected but didn’t dare asking, and the things crueller and more twisted than she could have ever imagined. Rejection. Treason. Beat ups. Poisoning. Torture. And pain.

She slowly closes the diary, and she puts it back into her coat, pressed against her heart. She curls up on the deck, shrinking into her seat like a small child and slowly, the tears she has been holding back for years start flowing out from her eyes. It’s only a few seconds before she loses whatever self-control she still has left, and she starts sobbing uncontrollably as reality sinks in and she is crushed by sadness, despair, but also hope, so much hope.

El is saved. She will grow old. She will live. And now, now it is time for _her_ to live as well.

The world spins around her and she cannot tell anymore whom it is she is crying for, if it is for her, for Edelgard, for Jeralt, for Jeritza, for Judith, for Leonie, for Ignatz, for Lysithea, for Hilda, for Dimitri, for all of those who died during this war.

But it is over now. It is finally all over. And as the ship breaks through the waves, droplets flying to her already wet cheeks, and the storm finally breaks loose above her head, Byleth thinks about Claude, whom she left on the shore, and she knows that the tears she is shedding are for him as well.

The last words he murmured in her ear as they parted still echo through her head.

“I know we’ll meet again.”

She believes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know where to start but first of all: a big thank you to everyone who read, left kudos, and commented! I’ve already said it many times before and I’ll say it again: it means a lot.
> 
> This account is as old as my time publishing fics, aka I’m a total newbie at the exercise. As I said in the very first chapter, this was also the first time I wrote something this long, and let it be known I had approximately zero idea of how to proceed. Without your comments, I would have given up on this long ago, so again, thank you to all. I still can’t believe I managed to write two chapters per month… (and sorry if I sound sappy, but it’s the truth uhu)
> 
> It was a funny experience and I feel like I learnt a lot on different levels (mostly English…), so I’ll probably write something long again someday… But for now, I think I’ll rest a little, because it’s been 6 months writing this 80K+ monster and I also have a lot of bookmarks to clear :p
> 
> You may expect some fluff later on for, uh, obvious reasons I think haha
> 
> \--
> 
> Some readers mentioned it; I put some FE Easter eggs in the story. 
> 
> I strongly HC that Morfis is Archanea, though in this story in particular I meant it more as a reference than as it being strictly the same place. Erinys is Furia Harbor/Port Ferox. Mu is the city of Thabes. The machine (?) to turn back time is based on Mila’s Turnwheel. 
> 
> The Dark Star is vaguely inspired by FE4 Loptous. 
> 
> The magical shenanigans in Mu are based on Fates’ Dragon Veins.
> 
> Senerio is FE9/10 Japanese name for Soren. Since a lot of locations in 3H take after FE4 characters, I thought it could be fun. On the same note, Erinys is an FE4 character. It’s also the name of deities of vengeance in Greek mythology, also known as Furies. So, it was convenient, to say the least.
> 
> Orion is a constellation situated near the star Sirius (Sothis), which is why I used it. In the legends, Sirius is Orion’s dog (lol) and when Artemis changed them into stars, she put them next to each other, so they wouldn’t be separated. Conveniently, Orion is also a hunter.
> 
> Obviously, I named Claude’s father after King Darius of Persia. Since Cyril (Cyrus) is a canon Almyran name in 3H, I considered it would make sense. EDIT: microlm in the comments (thank you!) informed me that Cyril and Cyrus actually AREN'T connected, so F for that one... Not that it changes my reasoning for picking Darius/Xerxes, but I need to stop believing random sites urgh
> 
> I have a clear vision of where I would see Byleth and Claude end up with their lives, but I’ll leave it up to your imagination unless you want me to elaborate on that.
> 
> Claude's last line is one he uses in VW. Take it as you want :p
> 
> \--
> 
> Thank you again for reading, hope you enjoyed it, and I’ll see you in the next one!!


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